South Sudan Urges Donors Deliver Aid Faster
South Sudan has asked donor countries to speed up delivery of aid designed to help rebuild its devastated infrastructure and create a peace dividend after two decades of civil war.
Following a January 2005 peace deal, 4,5 billion US dollar was pledged to Sudan by donors, who were meeting in the south on Thursday. After the deal they also put 400 million dollar in a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) to monitor its expenditure.
– We think that donor pledges are on track, but that delivery is slow, not just of the MDTF but everything, said Ishac Diwan, the World Bank representative for Sudan and Ethiopia. The Bank is one of the main partners directing the MTDF. Diwan said that processing cash through MDTF structures was bureaucratic but less open to corruption.
Southern finance ministry official Aggrey Tisa Sabuni said that the South Sudanese people hoped for faster aid delivery from donors, “but given the capacity to deliver in Sudan, they are going in the right direction”.
With no formal banking structures and too few skilled workers in the southern government’s ministries, the capacity of authorities to receive and spend the money has been limited.
The Sudan Tribune further reports that the participants in Sudan Consortium Meeting broadly called for accelerated action in carrying out certain key aspects of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with a focus on increased budget transparency and good governance, along with a sustainable end to the violence in Darfur.
With respect to Southern Sudan and the government of South Sudan (GoSS), the Consortium welcomed the establishment of institutions at all levels, along with evidence of more active accountability and expanded capacity building efforts.
However, participants noted that the GoSS faces enormous challenges, and that financial management and accountability systems remain rudimentary (sparsomme) as admitted by the president of GoSS, General Salva Kiir Mayardit.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
