From bloggers I follow:
“To mark South Sudan’s first anniversary read this” from Jina Moore is a great linked digest covering a range of perspectives.
“South Sudan’s Unhappy Anniversary” from Terah Edun
“Is a little balance too much to ask?” and “99 problems, but Bashir ain’t one” from Roving Bandit (Lee Crawford)
. . . the core of impact evaluation; the counterfactual. Imagine what would have happened if the event we are examining had not happened. So let’s imagine for a second what would be happening in South Sudan if there had not been independence. Peace and prosperity? New schools, roads, and hospitals? There are a couple of approaches we might use to think about what would have happened. We could look at the history of South Sudan pre-independence. We could look at all of the sterling development initiatives led by indicted war criminal Bashir in the South between 1989 and 2005. All of the schools and hospitals that he built. Or we could look at some of the people still living in the North. Perhaps those who have fled their homes to hide in caves from Bashir’s bombers. Or the 100,000 who have fled to the South from Blue Nile. The counterfactual for South Sudan is not flowers and kittens, it is rule by a man wanted for five counts of crimes against humanity; murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. Happy Birthday South Sudan.
WALKING TO COLLECT WATER IN JAMAN REFUGEE CAMP–“SOUTH SUDAN, ONE YEAR AFTER . . . ”
Photo by John Ferguson/Oxfam; some rights reserved by Oxfam International under Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives generic 2.0 license.
UPDATE 11 JULY–A new “must read” from Reuters: “Special Report: the wonks who sold Washington on South Sudan” from Rebecca Hamilton.
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