An Eye Opening Experience

I always have difficulty describing what exactly I do, when asked. Immediately after I open my mouth to mention the Sudan BRIDGE, people reach conclusions: building bridges across the Sudan. No. I build mutual bridges, not physical. I create linkages between the servants and the masters; if this idea exists in Sudan its remotest sense!

The government entities and the communities are supposed to work together, in any country in the world, to attain the highest standard of development. They must support/complement each other for the welfare of both. This concept is none-existence in Sudan’s Southern region. Here, we (the Southern Sudanese) have better excuse: the long civil war in Southern Sudan overshadowed whatever role the government’s institutions would play in the last 23 years. Only UN and other INGOs are seen as saviors of lives here. And the government is running on that propaganda: “we have no money to provide for all that is needed by a common man”! This is a song so much desired by government’s agencies here.

Now, who is responsible? This is a reason USAID came up with “Building Responsibility for the Delivery of Government Services: BRIDGE”. The BRIDGE I build stands on pillars of responsibility to deliver services to the people. That must be a new protocol. The war (I should qualify, the high level) has stopped and people must show they have fought a justified war by means of delivering whatever little they can. This is where my role becomes critical.

The government, or whoever is able, can only do deliver only if they knew whatever it is that to be delivered. The needs must be clearly articulated, prioritized, and presented by whomever these needs concerned. I make sure the matters understand and know what exactly, or close to that, they need to be delivered.

So, I work to empower people on issues of education, livelihoods/agriculture, water and hygiene and sanitation. These are areas which I called, “citizens empowerment”. So last week, I traveled to the field to work on promoting enterprise in rural communities. The program is to support small business enterprise through either expansion of existing small businesses or opening of new ones. We were surveying, by means of observation and discussions, within market in Nyamlell in Aweil West County, when we came to a small food serving “restaurant”. It was packed with people eating delicacies (according to local standard). We got so curious and wanted to investigate more on the nature of the business.

The owner of the business is a single mom with four children and has been running the business for over six months. She has few workers, but none could read and write to keep records. To her, “it has been a profitable business”! So we dug in more. We wanted to see how we can help her business expand. My colleague, Henry Jurugo, the enterprise officer, set in with some technical questions. We went down item by item so that we better judge the profitability of the business. With the help of our Agriculture Liaison Officer, who is a local, could do a better job of interpretation, because my (Dinka Bor) language varies a little bit from that of Dinka Malual’s. The businesswoman gave us prices of item bought per day and we calculated that against the daily revenue less expenses on workers.

If she was close or exactly right on her estimations, we discovered, she was running at loss! Yes, the devil is in the details! This was an eye opening event: she said, repeatedly, that she would hire someone to keep records of her all transactions. We jokingly agreed and suggested our staff to keep the records for her at a price of a meal per a day. But, the good news is, we are working with her to expand the business and this will be one success story. This is what is meant by building responsibility for the delivery of services. This is it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article!!