South Sudan is a country rich in natural resources but poor in basic infrastructure. More than a decade after independence, many communities continue to face serious shortages of roads, clean water, electricity, schools, health facilities, and productive infrastructure.
The challenge is therefore not only the availability of resources. It is also the country’s ability to convert public resources into visible, sustainable, and equitable development as a result of persistent conflict.
One possible solution is to establish the South Sudan National Development Implementation Commission (SSNDIC) as a national institution responsible for coordinating, implementing, monitoring, and supervising strategic development projects across South Sudan.
SSNDIC would not replace existing government ministries. Instead, it would complement them by providing a professional national implementation mechanism with stronger coordination and supervisory authority. It would coordinate with ministries, states, and other government institutions; supervise major infrastructure projects; monitor contractors; and ensure that approved development projects are implemented according to agreed standards, budgets, and timelines.
Why South Sudan needs SSNDIC
One of the major obstacles to development is the fragmentation of project implementation. Ministries, government institutions, states, development partners, and other actors often implement projects separately, sometimes without sufficient coordination, long-term planning, or effective monitoring.
SSNDIC could provide a more coordinated national approach.
The commission would identify, coordinate, implement, monitor and supervise projects based on national development priorities rather than political interests or short-term considerations. Its mandate could cover roads and bridges, water and sanitation, health facilities, schools, electricity, agricultural infrastructure, markets and other projects that directly improve people’s lives.
As a national institution, SSNDIC should have stronger authority over strategic development activities involving ministries, states, infrastructure agencies and contractors. For projects designated as national priorities, it should have authority to monitor implementation, require compliance with approved designs and standards, review progress, identify delays, and enforce or recommend corrective measures in accordance with the law.
The commission should also have a strong mandate to support development outside Juba. National development should not be concentrated in the capital. Rural communities need roads connecting them to markets, clean water, schools, health centres, electricity, and agricultural infrastructure.
Lessons from regional Countries
South Sudan would not be starting entirely from scratch. Several East African countries have developed specialized institutions that provide useful lessons.
Kenya: Dedicated Institutions and Infrastructure Financing
Kenya provides an important example of separating infrastructure implementation and financing from the general government machinery.
The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) is responsible for the development, rehabilitation, management, and maintenance of national trunk roads. Kenya also has the Kenya Roads Board, which coordinates and oversees dedicated road funds.
The lesson for South Sudan is clear: development institutions need a clear mandate and predictable financing.
South Sudan could adapt this principle by establishing a dedicated SSNDIC development fund financed through legally approved government revenues, with strict rules governing its use.
The objective would not be to copy Kenya’s road system but to apply its principles of specialised implementation, dedicated financing and performance monitoring to a broader range of national development projects.
Rwanda: Coordination and strategic oversight
Rwanda offers another useful lesson concerning national coordination and high-level oversight.
The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) was created in 2008 through the merger of several government institutions and was established to accelerate economic development, particularly by enabling private-sector growth. It operates under the supervision of the Office of the President.
For South Sudan, the lesson is that strategic development requires strong coordination at the highest level of government combined with professional management.
This supports the proposal that SSNDIC could report strategically to the Office of the President while maintaining operational independence in project implementation.
However, presidential oversight should be accompanied by parliamentary, financial and public accountability.
Ethiopia: Technical capacity
Ethiopia provides another important regional example through its Ethiopian Roads Administration (ERA), which is responsible for the construction, improvement and maintenance of the country’s road network.
The lesson is straightforward: a development institution cannot succeed merely because it has money and political authority; it needs technical capacity.
SSNDIC should therefore recruit engineers, project managers, economists, procurement specialists, financial experts, environmental specialists, and monitoring professionals.
What South Sudan should learn
South Sudan should learn from these countries without simply copying their institutions.
From Kenya, it can learn the importance of dedicated infrastructure institutions and predictable funding.
From Rwanda, it can learn the value of strong national coordination, professional management and high-level strategic oversight.
From Ethiopia, it can learn the importance of technical capacity and specialised institutions capable of planning, supervising and delivering infrastructure.
At the same time, South Sudan should study challenges such as public debt, procurement weaknesses, project delays, cost overruns and accountability.
The objective should be to develop a South Sudanese model suited to the country’s economic circumstances, geography, state structure and development needs.
National and state-level development
SSNDIC should have two major areas of responsibility.
First, it should implement strategic national projects whose importance goes beyond one state. These could include major highways, bridges, water systems, electricity infrastructure, and other projects that contribute to national economic integration.
Second, it should implement or support priority state and local development projects.
State governments and communities could identify their most urgent development needs, while SSNDIC assesses proposals according to transparent national criteria.
This would allow communities to participate in identifying development priorities while maintaining national standards for project implementation.
SSNDIC should also coordinate with state governments and local authorities on strategic projects while ensuring that national development standards, project specifications, implementation schedules, and accountability requirements are respected.
Funding the development agenda
A commission of this nature cannot succeed without reliable and predictable financing.
The government should establish a legally defined funding mechanism for SSNDIC. A portion of government revenues could be appropriated through the national budget specifically for development projects.
Other sources could include approved development grants, concessional financing, and carefully structured public-private partnerships.
The guiding principle should be that development funds are protected, transparent, and traceable.
Every project should have a clearly identified source of funding, approved budget, implementation timeline and expected outcome.
South Sudan’s oil resources should not only finance recurrent expenditure. They should also help build infrastructure capable of supporting economic diversification and reducing dependence on oil in the future.
Operational independence and stronger authority
For SSNDIC to succeed, it must be protected from unnecessary political interference while having sufficient authority to perform its national mandate.
The commission should have operational independence in project management, procurement, technical decisions, monitoring, supervision, and day-to-day implementation.
At the same time, SSNDIC should have stronger institutional authority over strategic development projects, particularly those funded by the national government or designated as national priorities.
Its authority should include the ability to:
- Coordinate strategic development projects across ministries, states, and government institutions.
- Review and approve implementation plans for designated national strategic projects.
- Monitor project budgets, timelines, technical standards and quality.
- Supervise infrastructure projects and require compliance with approved specifications.
- Monitor and evaluate contractors and implementing agencies.
- Require regular progress reports from ministries, states, agencies and contractors.
- Identify delays, poor performance and deviations from approved plans.
- Initiate or recommend corrective measures in accordance with the law.
- Recommend suspension, replacement or other contractual action against contractors that fail to meet their obligations, subject to procurement and contract law.
- Coordinate technical inspections and independent assessments of major projects.
- Maintain a national database of strategic development projects and their implementation status.
These powers would allow SSNDIC to move beyond simply advising ministries and states. It would become the central national mechanism for ensuring that strategic development projects are actually implemented and completed.
However, stronger authority must be accompanied by strong accountability. SSNDIC should not become an institution above the law.
The commission should report strategically to the Office of the President, while remaining subject to constitutional, legislative, financial, and judicial oversight.
A possible structure would be:
Office of the President → Strategic oversight
Parliament → Budgetary and legislative oversight
Auditor General → Financial auditing
SSNDIC Board → Institutional governance
SSNDIC Management → Coordination, implementation, monitoring and supervision
Ministries and States → Sectoral and local coordination
Contractors → Project execution under SSNDIC supervision and contractual obligations
This would give the commission sufficient authority to act while preventing it from becoming an unchecked government body.
Professional leadership
SSNDIC should be run by qualified professionals rather than becoming another institution dominated by political appointments.
Its technical team should include engineers, economists, financial specialists, procurement experts, project managers, environmental specialists, and monitoring and evaluation professionals.
Leadership positions should be based primarily on competence, experience and integrity.
If SSNDIC becomes another avenue for political patronage, it would defeat the purpose of establishing it.
Transparency and public monitoring
Transparency must be at the center of the institution.
South Sudanese citizens should be able to know how much money is allocated to a project, who is implementing it, when construction began, when it is expected to be completed, and how much has been spent.
SSNDIC could establish a public project-tracking system listing major projects, their locations, budgets, contractors, timelines, and implementation status.
This would allow Parliament, civil society, journalists, communities, and development partners to monitor progress.
A project should not simply be announced. It should be tracked until it is completed and operational.
Results should measure development
The success of SSNDIC should not be measured by the amount of money it spends or the number of projects it announces. Results should measure it.
A successful project is a road that people can use, a borehole that provides reliable water, a health center that provides services, a school that remains operational, and an electricity project that delivers power.
The commission should therefore adopt measurable performance indicators and publish regular reports on completed, delayed and failed projects.
Its monitoring and supervisory authority should ensure that contractors and implementing agencies are held accountable for the quality, cost and timely completion of projects.
A new development philosophy
The establishment of SSNDIC would require South Sudan to adopt a different philosophy of development.
The country needs to move:
- From announcing projects to completing projects.
- From emergency responses to long-term planning.
- From concentrating development in Juba to connecting states, counties and rural communities.
- From consuming natural-resource revenues to investing them in productive infrastructure.
- From politically driven projects to needs-based development.
Most importantly, South Sudan needs to move from depending almost entirely on oil revenues toward using those revenues to build an economy capable of generating sustainable income in the future.
The bigger question
The proposal for SSNDIC should not simply be viewed as a proposal to create another government institution.
The bigger question is:
How can South Sudan build an effective national institution that transforms public resources into infrastructure and economic opportunities for its people?
Kenya demonstrates the value of specialized infrastructure agencies and dedicated financing. Rwanda demonstrates the importance of coordinated development institutions under high-level strategic oversight. Ethiopia demonstrates the importance of technical capacity and specialized infrastructure administration.
South Sudan can learn from all three while creating an institution suited to its own circumstances.
If properly designed, SSNDIC could become the national engine for coordinating, implementing, monitoring, and supervising strategic development projects across South Sudan.
But its success would depend on three things: political commitment, professional management and strict accountability.
South Sudan has no shortage of development plans. What it needs is stronger implementation.
The country has resources, land, a young population and enormous agricultural and economic potential. What remains urgently needed is an institutional mechanism capable of turning that potential into roads, water systems, schools, hospitals, electricity, jobs and productive economic activity.
A South Sudan National Development Implementation Commission could provide such a mechanism
The objective should not be to create another powerful institution. The objective should be to create an effective national engine for development—one that has the authority to coordinate, implement, monitor, and supervise projects and can ultimately be measured by what it delivers to the people of South Sudan.
To conclude, by implementing these proposals and establishing the South Sudan National Development Implementation Commission (SSNDIC), South Sudan could begin to witness a new era of coordinated and accelerated national development within the first one to two years of the institution’s implementation.
With strong political commitment, professional management, adequate financing, effective monitoring and accountability, SSNDIC could help transform national resources into tangible development projects across the country.
Such an institution could provide a lasting framework for delivering roads, clean water, electricity, schools, health facilities, agricultural infrastructure and other essential services to communities across South Sudan.
Most importantly, this development agenda could usher in a new era of development under the able leadership of H.E. President Salva Kiir Mayardit, demonstrating a renewed commitment to turning South Sudan’s resources and potential into tangible improvements in the lives of its people.
The time has come to move from plans to implementation, from promises to delivery, and from potential to measurable development.
The writer is a media specialist and development practitioner. He can be reached via leek2daniel@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.
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