By Akol Madut Ngong
South Sudan government in partnership with stakeholders on Tuesday, June 2022 has launched a revised National Development Strategy (NDS) of 2021/2024, presided by the Presidency.
Addressing the participants, the First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar Teny who read out the speech of President Salva Kiir said that the exercise was done three years ago following the launch of a national development strategy 2018/2021 when they signed the revitalized agreement on the resolution of conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.
“The launch is notably different, it is a set, a time all national political parties become part of the government as peace agreement is being implemented. As we were implementing agreement, there is need to continue consolidating peace, on the one hand and stabilizing our economy,” Dr. Riek read out the speech.
“Our country is in doubt with enormous natural and human resources, we have likely with young population which is resilient and determine to move our Republic forward, as leaders, there is no excuse at all for any failure in achieving these novel objectives,” he continued.
The first Vice President stated that, their shared vision and optimism is to build prosperous country where citizens of all ages pursue happiness, guarded and governed by the rule of law and the brighter future and believe in ability to refrain from act of violence.
He said the optimism stand on strategic pillars: “first is the national dialogue in which our people have spoken through a transparent creditable and inclusive bottom process; secondly is the revitalized peace agreement, in which we have reached a consensus on how to address the root causes of our crisis of governance and leadership; thirdly, strategic pillar is a three years of July, 2021/June, 2024 national development strategy which am launching today, this third strategic pillar of our renew optimism, essentially reconstitute and overall framework for the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement and being siege of the recommendation of the national dialogue conference”.
In the statement he read out, Dr. Riek said that it is with the understanding that the revitalized national development strategy is launched as a guard for collective investment as a nation, as people begin the pre-transition period, the process of consolidating peace and stabilizing economy.
“Fellow citizen here and all over the globe, the revised national development strategy resulted from wider consultation, is a framework to organize all stakeholders at all level to work toward achieving sharing objectives of consolidating peace and stabilizing the economy,” he stated.
He said the government under the offices in the ministry of finance and planning is preparing the financial year 2022/2023 budget within the framework of the revitalized national development strategy.
Moreover, he said that the subsequent annual budget of the revitalized transitional government of national unity will be prepared and executed under the guidance of the national framework.
“For the annual budget to make a useful contribution of our three form of development objectives of sustainable peace, economic growth and poverty reduction, its paramount for this development processes to be guided by strategic framework which clearly identify the goal, objectives and priorities for our nation,” he said.
Dr. Riek said that at independence on July 2011, the Republic started from a very low index of development under investment and low capital, physical and human formation. Adding, the country’s average growth capital formation was less than 10% of growth domestic product development, during the period of 2008 to 2015, captured under investment.
He stated that the growth fix capital formation was established during the same period was 38%, and annual economic growth rate was 10%. He said, this example should inspire the country, as it is encouraging the people to seek novelties’ approaches.
In addition, he said that the public investment programme (PIP) is one of the most suitable vehicles for translating the national development strategy into tangible project in the key of human capital accumulation, agriculture, mining and institutional development. “Our commitments to public investments programming are that, it provides a first step embark on building inclusive political and economic institution which would in turn intend sustainable peace, economic growth and poverty reduction; the second step is instruct institution of government responsible for the various provision of the revitalized peace agreement to ensure alignment with revised national development strategy, the implementation of this national development strategy will be different from our previous lent it is design with wider consultation with stakeholders to allow systematic monitoring and evaluation annually,” he stressed.