1. Planning & budgeting in Southern Sudan: starting from scratch
Presentation by Gregory Smith
8th February 2011

2. Status CPA 2005, end of 22 years of war.
Referendum: 99% vote with a 60% turn out.
Still work to do before July 9th independence: citizenship will be defined, border demarcations, the status of the disputed region of Abyei and wealth sharing, especially in relation to oil and land.

3. Starting From Scratch?
Virtually from scratch, but not from a blank slate.
JAM. Contract out or not?
GoSS drew on staff from both:
The Southern Sudan Coordinating Council, which administered territories controlled by the Government of Sudan in the South during the conflict
Civil Administration of New Sudan, which covered the areas held by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

4. Capacity Trajectory 2005 to 2010: my observations…… Returnees
Soldiers turned book keepers.
More staff each year.
More equipment each year.
Building improvements each year.
Internet.

5. Oil = 98% budget

6. Oil Uncertain

7. Sectoral Split

8. Building the Systems Idea of constrained resources hard to achieve.
Strict budget timetable.
Support with submissions and training focus.
2006 competing budget systems.
‘Big-bang’ introduction of output-oriented budgeting, or a gradualist approach.
First input-based budgeting and moving towards an output-based approach once planning objectives had been identified and the spending agencies had fully grasped the basic principles of budgeting.

9. Building the Systems Each year increase in sophistication.
Political involvement.
Budget sector working groups.
TA in Ministry throughout.
MoF remained in charge.
Decision process was consultative.

10. Juba Planning

11. Remaining Challenges
Success achieved considered ‘upstream’, focusing on planning and budget preparation.
GoSS still has significant weaknesses in ‘downstream’ areas of budget execution and accountability.
Efforts are needed to ensure that budget execution is consistent with budget allocations, a major weakness in GoSS to date.
4. In addition, commitment controls and monitoring and evaluation need to be strengthened.

12. Remaining Challenges
5. A legislative framework for PFM still needs to be approved.
6. Efforts required to enhance domestic accountability and transparency (corruption is considered to be extensive).
7. External pressure for accountability carries limited weight due to the significant level of domestic oil resources.

13. Factors Behind Success
Two factors, in particular, have influenced this success:
1 Strong technical leadership from an integrated Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, responsible for planning, budgeting and aid coordination
2 System development that was tailored to this specific context, with incremental improvements aligned to development in local capacity.

14. Lessons Learnt
A strong technical lead by an integrated MoF is essential. Although international technical assistance can provide support to system design and management, it is not a replacement for the leadership role and decision-making capacity of Government.

15. Lessons Learnt
2. When designing post-conflict support programmes, efforts are needed to fully understand the levels of local capacity, and the systems used prior to and during the conflict, so that starting points are realistic.

16. Lessons Learnt
3. For system development to be fully grounded, it needs to be aligned with the rate of improvement of local capacity. This means accepting that process development can take years, and that best practice, however desirable, cannot always be achieved overnight.

17. What’s next?
Extracts from Royal African Society experts….