About

South Sudan came to being as an independent country on July 9, 2011 after a long war of liberation with its present northern neighbor Sudan. It has, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the worse Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators relative to sub-Saharan African averages and by extension South Sudan is one of the most undeveloped countries on earth. The new nation is endowed with natural resources, such as agricultural land, water, animal wealth, minerals, oil and so forth. This endowment notwithstanding, the country faces enormous challenges in terms of: 1) security; 2) governance constrained by weak institutions and capacities; 3) landlocked; 4) high expectations for quick dividends of secession; and 5) poor physical infrastructure with less than 250 km of paved roads! The above stated challenges do also constitute opportunities if they are addressed within a dynamic framework of sustained peace, economic growth, and poverty eradication. It is in this context that the Center is established as an independent, nonprofit and non-partisan institution in support of South Sudan’s quest for good governance through applied research and evidence-based policy advice.

To assist, through frontier research and policy analysis, the new nation of South Sudan to leapfrog into the 21st Century.

The Center is dedicated to serve the people of South Sudan by undertaking strategic studies in the key areas of public policy, capacity building & institutional strengthening, agricultural development, poverty analysis, private sector development, oil & gas, banking and financial sector development.

The Center would initially have the following specific objectives:
  1. To prepare policy briefs (e.g. exchange rate, inflation, unemployment, regional integration, international trade, budget analysis, etc.) on demand by the relevant institutions in the Republic of South Sudan;
  2. To prepare a strategic plan for the oil sector, which would highlight the key challenges facing the petroleum industry in South Sudan;
  3. To assist in poverty analysis and in the formulation of operational measures for poverty reduction;
  4. To collaborate with other research networks in undertaking growth studies on the economy of South Sudan, this would take an integrated approach combining policy analysis with training as by way of building requisite analytical capabilities for development policy design and implementation;
  5. To conduct seminars and training in macroeconomic policy analysis and modeling;
  6. To publish and disseminate research results through working policy papers.
Program Areas:
The work of the Center would focus on the following priority areas:
  1. Research and policy analysis.
  2. Natural resource management, especially the oil sector.
  3. Capacity building and institutional strengthening.