THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE by Lual A. Deng

Author:Lual A. Deng [Deng, Lual A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General
ISBN: 9780648969846
Google: 8EH5zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Africa World Books Pty Limited
Published: 2020-09-29T05:25:44+00:00

Impact of Conflict on Private Domestic Resource Mobilization

A brief look at the economics of violence literature would enable us to understand the impact of conflict on private domestic resource mobilization for productive activities in the economy of South Sudan. The ability (capacity) of the economy to supply more (i.e. growth) goods and services to the population is reinforced by a system of sustained transactions and exchanges between economic agents within the country and/or with the rest of the world through international trade. And when this sustained transactions and exchanges are interrupted by violence, the ability of the economy to perform its core functions is reduced proportionately.

The most appropriate tool of analysis here is the microeconomics theorizing, which seeks to understand the behavior of economic agents in an environment of violence and fragility. In this regard, the two theories – growth and economics of violence – are complementary to each other in explaining the impact of violent conflict on the factors influencing economic growth in South Sudan. This is because microeconomics provides appropriate analysis of the behavior of economic agents within a macroeconomic policy framework.

How do economic agents respond to macroeconomic policy measures, such as deficit financing? Such a question is answered through tools drawn mainly from microeconomics. This approach would in turn enable those interested in the growth and stability of South Sudan to understand and appreciate the opportunities, incentives, preferences, and scarcity constraints, which influence the choices people of South Sudan and their leaders make in a conflict environment. And we by now know the behavior of our policymakers during peacetime – propensity for crisis in a strangely reckless manner.

Let us start with Bram van Besouw, Erick Ansink, and Bas van Bavel, who stress the centrality of understanding violence in the context of development:

Violence is key to understanding human interaction and societal development. A society that is unable to contain violence will be disrupted and cannot be expected to sustain high levels of welfare, as is painfully illustrated by the current situation in Afghanistan, Libya or, perhaps most conspicuously, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Countries like Congo, Somalia, and Sudan are almost continuously torn up by extortion and coercion under the threat of violence, factional strife, and intermittent periods of open violence. Such conditions may destroy lives and capital goods, and deter interaction, exchange, investment, trade, and the benefits of specialization that come with trade, leading to significant welfare losses105.

In his Nobel Prize Lecture on 8 December 1979, Theodore W. Schultz had this to say:

Most of the people in the world are poor, so if we knew the economics of being poor, we would know much of the economics that really matters. Most of the world’s poor people earn their living from agriculture, so if we knew the economics of agriculture, we would know much of the economics of being poor106.

Following Schultz’s tradition of inquiry, we see that about 80% of the population in South Sudan is affected by violent conflict - many South Sudanese are insecure for they derive their livelihood in a conflict environment.

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