Cash Needed to Save South Sudan Peace Deal

Donors have been too slow in delivering funds to develop south Sudan after a landmark peace deal and need to adopt a unified approach to deal with multiple conflicts in Africa's largest country, observers say.

Sudan signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 to end Africa's longest civil war, but the agreement was overshadowed as a revolt in its western Darfur region sparked the world's largest aid operation, diverting donor focus and cash.

"Donor governments, which promised billions of dollars to help with the reconstruction of the south need to make those resources available to ensure that hundreds of thousands of returning Sudanese ... gain greater access to water, medical assistance, education," advocacy group Refugees International said in a report.

It singled out a World Bank-led mechanism called the Multi Donor Trust Fund (MTDF) as being too slow in giving money to the semi-autonomous south Sudan government to develop the war-torn south, one of the poorest areas in the world.

"Half a billion dollars...was committed to the World Bank administered MDTF, a mechanism that has thus far proved to be woefully inefficient, with only about $80 million disbursed to date," it added.

This week south Sudan said it would begin to demobilise some 25,000 soldiers but that support packages including seeds and tools were not guaranteed for them because of United Nations funding delays.

"The money is available," said David Gressly, the top humanitarian official in Sudan. "However, our policy is not to release funds, until the national framework has been agreed."

He acknowledged a new way to deliver cash rapidly to support urgent development was needed to add to the MDTF.

"We do need a new mechanism to fund early recovery projects. We have indeed proposed such a mechanism, and are seeking donor support for it."


FEAR OF FRESH CONFLICT

In Sudan's north-south war, 2 million were killed and at least 4 million fled their homes.

Sudan remains awash with small arms and many worry those who do not see a peace dividend could take up arms again.

State minister of foreign affairs Ali Karti said the international community was to blame for delays in implementing the north-south deal.

"The international community is failing and is unable to meet their obligation," he said. "This is something that we cannot do alone."

Jan Pronk, former head of the U.N. mission in Sudan entrusted with monitoring implementation of the deal, said there was almost no international attention on the north-south problem as negotiations continue on Darfur.

The United Nations last month authorised 26,000 U.N. and African Union troops and police to deploy to Darfur, where experts estimate 200,000 have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes in more than four years of conflict.

A July 9 deadline by which north and south armies were to deploy to each side of the north-south border was missed with no comment from anyone, Pronk said.

"It's as if people didn't care," he said. "They think there are two problems but it is one problem. It is a problem of unity and peace which is in Sudan as a whole."

Rebels from Sudan's outlying regions, south, east and west, all complain of neglect by the Khartoum government, dominated by central Nilotic tribes since independence.

Pronk said democratic elections by 2009, as envisaged by the north-south deal, was the only way forward for Sudan. It also gave southerners the right to vote on secession by 2011.

"They (donors) need to put a lot of pressure on the two parties to have the elections," he said, warning if key elements of the north-south deal were not implemented, the south could separate.