Action Plan

COW invites all its members, supporters and sympathizers to scrutinize the following action plan and bring forward objective suggestions for its implementation.

Decades of civil warfare in Sudan have completely destroyed the rudimentary structures that existed before the war, particularly in South Sudan. The Bor area has been singled out for special repression by the successive North Sudan-dominated armies to break what it perceived as the backbone of the liberation struggle (home of late leader Dr John Garang). Destruction of those structures was seen as a means to deny the Liberation Army basic services and to entice the rural population to move to the garrison town. The community bore the brunt of the conflict.

Inadequate as they were, they formed the basis of some of the most needed service structures. Such structures represented basic services, like schools; clean drinking water sources, e.g., bore wells fitted with pumps or connected to water tanks; agricultural extension programs; animal husbandry; hospitals; dispensaries; public and private transport facilities; and paved roads, etc... All these and many more are gone as collateral war effects or from the planned destruction by Sudan Armed Forces and allied militia groups.

For the decimated, fractured community to regroup and hope to start living near-normal lives, all the previous services and new ones need to be brought to functional levels once more. The desire to be back to the motherland is stronger than other forces tending to keep displaced people back in the camps. For these new arrivals to fit into the community, they must benefit from these services.

We hope to initiate programs that will facilitate a smooth re-integration into the community. The end of 2005 witnessed an unexpected return to the motherland of thousands of people with 1.5 million heads of cattle. This is a situation that will definitely impact the existing services, rendering them certainly inadequate for all.

These services are basic, vital and urgently needed for community well-being, stability development & cohesion. However, logically speaking, it will not be feasible to do it all at once and at the same time. We therefore envision programming actions at three priority levels: immediate short-term, medium- and long-term periods. Immediate, or short-term, programs aim at saving life or preventing loss of it. Long-term programs are projected to improve the quality of life, while medium-term programs combine both short- and long-term action plans.

1.) Education: Resulting from the negative war effects, generations of children have been lost to illiteracy in an area where the literacy rate was already lowest. The advantages of education have already been seen and felt by the community through the services provided by the few educated community members. This fact has encouraged every single family to send one or more members to school. Girls’ education is lagging. Self-help programs have constructed primary schools in the population centers. However, middle and high school education cannot be provided on self-help. The need for specialized construction, laboratories, etc... requires technology and therefore more funds and expertise. The communities are motivated to send all school-age children to school. There are no such schools to accommodate potential pupils.

Amongst these children who may be lost to illiteracy are potential leaders having the qualities of some of their elders and exemplified by some of the lost boys. We need to save them from illiteracy by providing basic education for all.

One middle education school existed for the entire community - Bor Intermediate School. It is destroyed beyond renovation. There was Malek High School before the war, which was transformed into a garrison post and destroyed while changing hands frequently between the government and Sudan peoples' Liberation Army.

With the current number of pupils attending primary schools, old structures alone will not provide sufficient space and facilities for these children's education. They definitely need more.

2.) Provision of clean (potable) drinking water is another priority area. Other than eventual scarcity, stagnant water has served as the reservoir for carriers of deadly parasites like Malaria, Bilharzia, and Guinea-worm, etc... which are reaching nearly epidemic levels in the area. Provision of clean drinking water sources will certainly interrupt the transmission of such infections, saving lives and protecting others from the perils of disease with resultant incapacity. It provides opportunity for the community members to remain on their farms during the dry season, raising the possibility of working the land and increasing production. Global wellness in this millennium supposes that each individual, community, etc... has access to clean water sources.

In certain areas, some parts of pre-existing structures can be renovated (low cost?) while some may require complete replacement. The water level is not very low, being near to the Nile River. Digging new borehole wells is feasible at moderate costs. Taking and treating Nile water before transporting it to the entire community in pipes (from the Nile to nearest population center) is an option worth seriously considering. Pipe networking might offer an alternative solution. Water development experts may have other plausible suggestions. However, provision of clean drinking water can no longer be delayed. It is an immediate priority.

3.) Food security is another priority area. Food shortage at certain seasons of the year, following environmental changes and natural catastrophes (drought, locust, floods, etc...), has frequently threatened the population with a looming famine. In the recent past, we had to avert such a catastrophe through swift and determined collective action. We averted the famine at that particular point in time. However, the problem remains unresolved. We need to find permanent solutions. One such solution is to make food locally available in the market through planned production.

Bor land is very fertile as ILACO (a Dutch organization) has confirmed through studies in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

We have to transform subsistence agriculture to market agricultural production. This will surely require new production methods different from the implements used for tilling the land previously. Hoes and hands cannot provide a basis for increased agricultural production and food security. Tractors are the solution for obvious reasons. Humans may work for short periods under the tropical heat. However, tractors, when well-serviced, may allow work over long periods and cover large areas. They definitely provide a stable basis for increased production and food security.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which provides possibility of security, stability, potential economic opportunity and investment interests by multi-national corporations, gives us much hope in service delivery over south Sudan.

4.) In the health service delivery system, Bor Hospital was the only hospital (40-bed capacity) serving a population of two million, scattered over a 150-mile length from Cueiker (South) to DukPadiet (North) and a 50-mile width. This hospital was served by a number of primary healthcare units (PHCU) and two health centers (Anyidi & Kongor). Bor town is serving as the center for Jonglei Region Administration, attracting a large population. However, the hospital remains only in name. Its renovation, expansion and equipment with modern materials would be a service to the population that will immediately benefit from it. The Governorship, with nonexistent administrative structures and a poor economy, cannot be expected to do that promptly.

PHCU, dispensaries and Primary Healthcare Centers need to be renovated as well as supplied with basic medical supplies. Above all, they urgently need transport facilities to bring patients that need emergency medical attention to the few (one or two) physicians at the hospital. In the past, someone had to run to the hospital (20-150 miles) to inform the physician about a condition. Transportation would be organized to go and bring the patient to hospital. In most cases, the car arrived either to find a potentially savable patient dead or the patient died either en route to the hospital or on arrival. This unnecessary loss of life can be prevented by having a functional transport facility within the healthcare unit. This is an immediate, affordable need that must be addressed now.

5.)  Banking is one of the organs for economic growth and security in any society. Banking provides a means for a secured currency flow between the service area and potential investors. Many multinational banks started as small cooperative credit banks. They expanded through merging of small ones. Their place in state, regional or national economies of diverse nations in the developed & developing countries cannot be underestimated.

Banking is the backbone, the pillar on which local economy can flourish. Small and medium size businesses and petty trade can take secured loans to translate their dreams into reality, thereby providing opportunity for economic change and employment. Even the post-depression USA saw economic recovery through banking and encouragement of small size business enterprise.

In the case of Bor Community, South Sudan, many members transfer money home through third parties. Instead of supporting those businesses, establishing our own secure banking system will go a long way to improve the quality of our lives. When urgent transfer may impose itself, it will be easy to affect that with absolute security. Delay will not be a factor as people have to go to Juba (nearest bank), spending a large part of the transferred sum and risking losing the whole in the process. Cooperation with other state communities could facilitate a joint venture regional enterprise, if and when Bor Community members, independently, may not afford to realize that dream. 

Economic development of such a potentially very rich state as Jonglei will attract investment partners.  Jonglei State, in general, and Bor, in particular, are floating on petroleum, studies by many multinational oil companies have confirmed. Some companies are in the process of establishing exploitation contracts, and will soon be in this virgin land. The vast fertile agricultural land, yet to be exposed to agro-industry, is an added incentive to investors. Local capital, staff, community involvement and support are factors that will guarantee the sustainability of any such economic development success. The foreseeable benefits will motivate local and International investors, it is hoped.

Banking provides both personal success and community service, a welcome double advantage. If capital were available, this program could be treated as a short term one.

6.)  Housing facilities provides another challenge for improved life quality. The traditional hut, or tukul, where a whole family or more regroup to spend the night, is no longer acceptable and desirable as a housing service. Amongst others, it was adopted to provide protection (from wild animals & human enemies) for family and domestic animals. Modern construction materials were not available or too expensive to acquire. People had to live with what they had and technological abilities. During these changing times, it is high time this has to change for the better. It is unhygienic to crowd animals and humans in a single room. Housing standards in rural areas need to adapt to these changing times and relate to modern methods. Someone has to show an example, by constructing his or her house on modern model, to be followed by others. No one living in a modern house would accept to live under those conditions again, even for a single night. We must seize the initiative to lead the way to modern standards. The dream boys and girls, dream mothers and fathers, indeed all dream community members, should collectively take action.

Bor town, an example of a war-destroyed town in South Sudan, no longer has habitable housing facilities by civilized standards. As the governorship is redistributing land to be developed for housing facilities, we hope modern housing construction replaces the old Sudan housing facilities - mud walls and grass roof thatches. That type of construction is no longer fit for 21 st century habitation, at an era of potential economic boom, when South Sudan promises to be an oil-producing and exporting nation/state. 

Modern housing construction skills may easily be acquired. However, the capital to put together all the materials is still lacking. This provides another opportunity for local and external investment (housing construction enterprise) to cooperate in building model homesteads, with special facilities for domestic animals like cattle, sheep and goats. Solidarity is required in order to realize this dream project. Housing facilities will improve the quality of life, attract tourists to natural game parks between Bor, Pibor or Pochalla and beyond. It will provide a strong component for socio-economic rehabilitation of the community. It provides an opportunity for personal progress and hope.

As each one of us would love to acquire private housing facility here in the developed world, it would be more appealing to acquire one within your birth community, at lower cost than here. It is a wonderful & important lifetime investment.

7.) Fishing The Nile River blesses the aquatic life, the trees, the environment, the economy, the wildlife and humans with its water. Nile water is revered in South Sudan for giving and saving life. The Nile River and its tributaries, along which live most of the Bor populace, have, for time immemorial, provided fish, which is an important component of their nutritional needs. The people adopted various fishing methods using archaic fishing utensils that could not provide beyond a day's supply.

After the 1972 Addis Abeba Peace Accord, a number of fishermen opted for small business trading in fishing. They developed improved methods to obtain fish for local and regional markets. It flourished and greatly improved local, regional, national and international economies.

Some of the petty traders of fish survived the negative war effects after displacement to North Sudan, internal displacement within South Sudan and/or refuge to a neighboring country. Voluntary or involuntary return to the motherland will certainly provide challenges and competition over services and facilities between those who remain in the area, earlier returnees and current ones. Not many would have acquired new professions or learned other trades on which to support themselves or families. Yet, the society should care for them as well as it cares for itself. It would be best to offer them the opportunity to contribute to their welfare and that of the society in which they live by helping them practice what they know best--fishing for public consumption. Lack of  job opportunities might even create conflict where objective reasons for conflict would not exist. A hungry person is an angry and explosive person. Through providing the means for petty trade in fishing, that potential hunger/anger can be transformed into love, happiness, solidarity and peaceful coexistence. This is achievable and relatively easy to implement as a medium- or long-term program.

The market for fish is never satisfied in South Sudan and neighboring countries, e.g., The Democratic Republic Of Congo ( DRC ). The fishing zones are as vast as the fish market. The fish traders are as creative as the product of the fish market and the fishing zones. Development of petty trade in fish would not require a huge capital. It will require guidance, loans and teaching the business owners modern methods of  fish conservation (fresh or dried). These methods could include provision of large quantities of salt for drying and coagulators for fresh fish with similarly adapted transport facilities to close markets and consumption centers. Fishing-cooperative societies could grow to give local economies renewed strength and empower the community.

Fishing can rehabilitate both the individual traders and families with immediate impact.

"Provide fishing utensils and you feed the person forever, give him/her fish and you feed him/her today only" is a commonly cited proverb in Bor Society.