99 Problems

During the Independence celebrations, there was a popular t-shirt with the slogan, “We got 99 problems, but Bashir ain’t one,” referring to President Bashir of North Sudan (Mom- if you don’t know why this is funny, it’s okay). John and I thought it was really clever and then started wondering, could we in fact name 99 distinct problems facing South Sudan? Clearly, there are a lot, but 99? Being the nerds that we are, we sat down to try and found the exercise to be challenging, but possible. We also discussed writing a list for the U.S. called “We got 99 problems, but default ain’t one,” but then we decided it would be too depressingly easy. Here’s our list for South Sudan:

1. Tropical diseases including malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, dengue fever, bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, sleeping sickness, guinea worm, etc.
2. Emergence of new sickness called “nodding disease”
   
3. Growing threat of HIV/AIDS
4. Lack of access to quality health services
5. Life expectancy lower than 58 (58 is the life expectancy for Sudan; I couldn’t find South Sudan specific statistics)
6. Citizenship
7. Safety for Southerners still living in the North
8. Bringing back South Sudanese from the diaspora
9. Currency
10. Infant mortality of 102 deaths for every 1000 births, which is the 6th highest in the world
    
11. Extremely high maternal mortality (mothers dying in child birth)
    
12. Tall people, short tukuls
13. Women’s rights
14. Minority rights
15. Agriculture – Domestic Food Production
16. Poor nutrition
17. Lack of transportation infrastructure (roads and airports)
18. Lack of access to markets for anyone trying to start a business
19. Reliance on imported food
20. Lord’s Resistance Army attacks
21. Annoyingly expensive cheese for a country filled with cows and goats
22. Sanitation
23. Reallllly bad national beer called “White Bull”
24. Little access to electricity
25. Inconsistent access to fuel
26. Landlocked- no shoreline
27. Cost of painting “South” above “Sudan” on every government building and vehicle
28. Conflict over location of county seats
29. How to separate counties (along ethnic lines?)
30. Understanding of land belonging to ethnic communities- little mobility between them and disagreements about where the borders are
31. Getting the capital off the Most Expensive Cities in the World list
32. Getting the country off the Poorest Countries in the World list
33. Emerging youth gangs, modeling themselves on US rap culture
34. Erosion of the authority of traditional chiefs
35. Cyclical conflicts between pastoralists and agriculturalists
36. Legacy of child abduction as means of war
37. Vulnerable populations that is unable to withstand natural shocks like drought
    
38. Donor dependence mind-set
39. Cyclical reliance on food aid
40. Lack of educated South Sudanese to fill important roles in government and business
41. The dangerous world of getting receipts
42. No functioning education system for the country’s children
43. Literacy rate of 27% (only 16% for women!)
44. Government tendency to announce public holidays at 4:45 the day before
45. Many foreigners from neighboring countries (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea) drive the economy
46. Thinly veiled hostilities between South Sudanese and foreigners living here
47. Abyei
48. Fighting along the border in Southern Kordofan that affects Nuba people and drives refugees into the South
    
49. High levels of returnees still coming from the North who need provisions
50. Developing support for the constitution
51. Disarmament of civilian populations
52. Reintegration of ex-combatants back into their communities
53. Training and maintaining a professional army
54. Training a professional police force
55. Developing a functional judicial system
56. Deciding on the right balance between federal and decentralized power
57. Splitting the debt with the North, when the South never benefited from anything the funds were spent on
58. Developing foreign relations with neighboring countries
59. Navigating tricky relationships with the Arab League and Israel
60. Coordinating with, but not being driven by, the many NGOs in the country
61. Lack of access to clean water
62. Lack of sanitation services, even in Juba
63. High cost of construction (all cement must be imported and is taxed heavily)
64. Improving the basketball team (so much possibility and so little delivery!)
65. Corruption in government
66. Powerful, but uneducated clergy
67. US Government BIS restrictions, which make it difficult to import American technology
68. Renegade militias that undermine the government’s authority
69. Ethnic divisions within government
70. Lack of a strong civil society to balance government power
71. Lack of good university options in South Sudan
72. Absence of a middle class
73. “Big man” leadership mentality
74. Remembering what “traditional” really means
75. Re-negotiating contracts with oil drillers
76. Finding safe ways to transport the raw oil to processing facilities
77. Negotiating oil profit sharing with the North
78. Developing factories and manufacturing in South Sudan
79. Cow-based economy
80. Cattle-raiding
81. High bride prices that delay marriage, encourage cattle-raiding, and reinforce the understanding of women as property
82. Ants capable of destroying a house
83. Family conflicts resulting from polygamous marriages
84. Extended family responsibilities and expectations, which make saving for your children’s education seem immoral
85. Traumatized population after decades of war
86. Supporting the return of wildlife that migrated during the war (for ecological reasons and to encourage tourism)
87. Extremely young population- 44% is under 14
88. Damage to clothes from hand-washing and line drying on barbed wire or broken fences
89. South Sudanese, at least those who can afford to, often keep their families and money outside the country
90. UNMISS
91. Dry season that kills off plants and encourages movement of cattle through other people’s land
92. Rainy season that cuts of access to some parts of the country for several months per year
93. 142 languages, which create barriers between communities (again statistic is for united Sudan, so this would be less in South Sudan)
94. Disagreement over use of Arabic or English as the lingua franca
95. Ethnic conflicts
96. Constant movement of people displaced by internal fighting
97. Changing the country’s mobile phone numbers to the new country code +211
98. Lack of reliable internet access
99. Landmines (leftover from the war and newly laid by militias)

But you know what? Bashir ain’t one.

-John and Stephanie