Of all the issues facing South Sudan, the problem with the abundance of contaminated water is one of the most pressing dilemmas. Though Tibbett (1998) describes research done about twenty years ago that uncovered an alarming statistic; almost “80% of all illness is related to water” in this low-income country. While that information is quite dated, no changes have been made to improve the quality of water in the country, which is a terrifying reality. Emma Engström et al. (2015) describes that the lack of improvement was evident under the “[investigation of] the occurrence of fecal contamination of 147 improved groundwater sources” in a region of South Sudan; harmful microbiological species were “detected in 66% of the sources.” It is important to note that the investigated sources were considered to have been previously improved by a human aid organization. Another alarming point Engström et al. (2015) brought to light was the strong association measured at (p<0.05) that was brought forth not by short-term rainfall, latrines or damages to borehole aprons, but rather by contaminated surface water leaking into water sources. Based on this information, there is a need to construct more latrines or section off areas near water sources that prevent contamination.
The UN Agency took a major interest in the livelihood of South Sudan after they celebrated their independence as the world's’ newest nation in 2011, as they discovered using an elaborate and “extensive satellite land cover survey that showed just 4.5 percent of the available land was currently under cultivation.’ For a developing country, that is not ideal considering that 95% of the South Sudan population relies on strictly natural resources just to survive. I applaud the UN agency for being so thorough in its initial evaluation of South Sudan, as they wanted to get a grasp on other natural resources as well that extend beyond land used for agriculture, such as forests, rivers and areas for wildlife grazing. (IAP set up by UN Agency) As I mentioned before, with the vast amount of people that depend upon natural resources, there is substantial potential for growth that is vast and more importantly sustainable through the nations agriculture.
The government of South Sudan made history in just their sixth year of existence in 2017, as their leaders declared the first official famine in the world since 2012, as the government gravely warned that roughly 100,000 people were at risk of starvation and death. The popular professional opinion held around the UN is that this could have been prevented were it not for the fighting from “forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar.” The World Food Program went a step farther and said that the famine was man made, and roughly another one million people out of the total 12.5 million that South Sudan had was on the brink of falling into famine too. (WFP) An example of how the fighting affected the famine was obvious last july, when government rebel forces looted a World Food Program facility from the capital of Juba. The WFP has came out and publicly stated that the amount of food stolen from the facility was enough food to feed hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese people.
In January of 2017 the UN along with several other human aid organizations created an “international appeal” to combat poor humanitarian conditions to the tune of 1.6 billion dollars. At the time of publishing of this article in late february, they had raised $14.4 million dollars, or less than once percent of their appeal after two months. There’s just too many other issues going on in this part of the world for the UN and aid agencies to focus all their attention on South Sudan when there’s other conflicts going on. A big part of these conflicts can be attributed to the abundance of natural resources, specifically oil in the Bentiu district of South Sudan. Ethnic killing have been happening in mass quantities since 2013 in this oil rich district. A solution that was created was the “Lamu Port- South Sudan – Ethiopia Transport”, which is a twenty four billion dollar project that was designed to improve railways, pipeline and road nodes. (Lapsset) These natural resource rich countries are stuck between a struggle between some of the major powers, specifically China, as they have poured over eighty billion dollars into the EAC region, including in South Sudan. This money was used to improve anything from mining, farming, oil and gas to industries and infrastructure development. An alarming trend that emerged that caused Obama to try to get the U.S involved in this region was that China’s two top officials President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, have visited East Africa and between them sealed 48 business deals in the region.
In order for the country of South Sudan to flourish, there must be an increased focus, which there already has been, on the cleansing of the water supply, their natural resources and who their external influences are. It is impossible for a country to grow sustainably and a strong economy when their water supply is unclean, which has been a major point of emphasis for both the South Sudan government and the UN agency. South Sudan must also utilize their natural resources and the land that is home to them, as the number of people who rely on natural resources more than anything else is way too substantial for the current use of their land and natural resources not to sky rocket from the current 4.5% that was reported to be in use in the coming years and decades. They also must be wary of who and what other countries are trying to influence them, as there is a ridiculous amount of oil located in South Sudan that other major industrialized countries would love to get their hands on, and will do almost anything in order to get it before other major powers.