Release International

International donors are failing to make good pledges of aid for southern Sudan, apparently put off by continued hostilities in Darfur.

Sudanese Vice-President Salva Kiir, himself a southerner, asked a meeting of donors in Paris not to make funding for redevelopment in the war-ravaged south conditional on progress to resolve the three-year conflict in the western province.

The mainly Christian and animist south was promised $4.5 billion in aid when Sudan's peace deal was signed a year ago -- but most of the funding has not yet materialised.

At the same time, the Sudanese government is not using the substantial revenues it gets from the country's oil-fields to start to rebuild the south. The BBC reports that projects to build schools, hospitals and roads in the south are lying dormant: teachers, soldiers and civil servants have reportedly not been paid.

There is also concern that the new southern administration, based in Juba, is making a slow start. Few new buildings have gone up in Juba since it was installed.

As southerners grow increasingly frustrated that the peace deal is not delivering any tangible benefits, there are concerns that the peace might disintegrate. UN envoy Jan Pronk told the Security Council last week that violent clashes between rival armed groups in the south are on the increase. Former rebel units still have not been disbanded and weapons are still freely available, he said.

There are also fears that a cholera outbreak in the south, which began in Yei in January, could spread with the onset of the rainy season.

• Pray that foreign governments and funding bodies would renew their commitments to helping Sudan rebuild itself after a long civil war.
• Pray that Sudanese administrations in Khartoum and Juba would unite in making the redevelopment of southern Sudan a top priority -- for the sake of peace.

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