Bridging The Capacity Gap In Southern Sudan
County Staff Complete Participatory Planning and Budgeting Training

Facilitator Mr. Atem Marol Biar leads one of the training sessions

Juba, 20 June 2008: As Southern Sudan works towards a decentralized governance at the state and local levels, UNDP and development partners continue to lend their support to build decentralized governance practices and bridge the capacity gap across the 10 southern states and 78 counties through capacity development support in planning and budgeting at three levels of governance through various projects.

As of this week, a total of 49 county planning unit staff of 11 counties of Jonglei state have successfully completed a ten days one-week training on the participatory planning and budgeting process in preparation for the 2009 county planning and budgeting exercise. The training was organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Local Government Board, and State level Ministry of Local Government on June 3-13, in Bor county, the capital city of the state.,

“Bringing 49 staff together from 11 Jonglei State counties to be trained in participatory planning and budgeting wasn’t an easy task. Most of the time participants had to be airlifted due to the lack of drivable roads and other logistical obstacles. But with the support of all partners, not only we managed to make this important training as participatory as it should be, but we are extremely pleased to see that the government staff who had been trained by UNDP as trainers and facilitators were able to train their fellow southern Sudanese civil servants in the best possible way. Such an achievement clearly demonstrates the importance of sustainable development”, said Mr. Jafet Enriquez, Head of UNDP Office in Southern Sudan.

Budgeting and planning exercise using Flip Chart

In addition to the 49 county staff who were trained in budgeting and planning, an additional 250 county staff are in the process of completing a similar training in the remaining 9 southern states. Developing the capacity of county staff to implement participatory planning and budgeting process is part of a set of interventions undertaken under the Local Government Recovery Program; a three-year initiative jointly implemented by UNDP and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), and funded by the UK’s DFID, the Embassy of the Netherlands, and France.

The LGRP support is mobilized at three levels of governance in Southern Sudan. At the GOSS level, the project provides support for policy and legislation on local government through the Local Government Board (LGB), a constitutionally provisioned body responsible for overall policy matters on local governance. At the state level, the project collaborates with the state governments through the state Ministry of Local Government. However, most of the activities focus on the counties, at the local government level.

The project’s support to the counties include putting in place local councils, planning structures; developing local planning and budgeting systems; capacity development to implement participatory planning and budgeting process; and establishing a local government fund to enable the local governments to access resources for development and delivery of services.

Participants burst into laughter during one a training session

Building a decentralized local governance administration and management is an enormous challenge in view of the capacity gap. In fact, the local government structure was based on the system that was developed by the Government of Sudan in the 1980s. As a result, in many cases the current local government staff have been serving in their respective counties since 1980s without being empowered into skilled workers. Since the signing of the CPA, however, the local government system in Southern Sudan has been subject to major reforms to allow the emergence of local governments that are capable of playing a leadership role in the socio-economic development of counties.

The reform addresses the various difficulties facing local governments across the 78 counties of the ten Southern Sudan states, and hinder any tentative planning process. These difficulties include the lack of skilled human resource professionals both at the state and county level; emerging nature of local government; acute lack of basic infrastructural facilities and security; lack of data, long absence of local participation in local decision making process due to Africa’s longest civil war. The lack of data that had hinders the planning and budgeting process has been addressed to a large extent in 2007 with the preparation of new county profiles.

Jonglei State Governor H.E Lt Gen Mr. Kuol Manyang Juuk awarding certificates to trained county staff

In the course of this year, UNDP helped the Local Government Board to screen 3500 local government staff in ten states to set standards and qualifications to upgrade and retain qualified professionals in the local government systems in order to promote the institutional capacity of local government in an organized and strategic manner. It was the first time that such an exercise took place since the end of the war. The Board will publish the result, provide them to the respective states who will then be responsible to harmonizing them within their respective civil service sytems.

Out of an estimated 10,000 Coordination Council of South Sudan (CCSS) staff that were retained, 6,000 are unskilled workers while the rest 4,000 are physically located outside the State in places such as Juba, Malakal or Khartoum. At the county level, the Civil Authority of New Sudan (CANS) staff is working on voluntary basis in the same fashion as they did during the war.

It is expected that the participatory budgeting and planning training would help the county staff carry out their respective tasks that cover planning, programming, budgeting, coordination; resource mobilization; and maintaining peace and stability at the county level for the delivery of basic services to the people of Southern Sudan. Since no county planning and budgeting process has ever been undertaken in the past, their immediate priority work would focus on preparing county plans/budget based on a participatory approach.

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To learn more about the Local Government Recovery Program in Southern Sudan, please contact Mr. Shyam Bhurtel, Head of Governance Unit, UNDP Office in Southern Sudan, shyam.bhurtel@undp.org
Or visit: http://www.sd.undp.org/projects/s_dg1.htm

UNDP is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life.