SOUTH SUDAN’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE

**Table 18. Illustrative investment targets for infrastructure in South Sudan**

|||**Economic targets**|**Social targets**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Information and<br>communication<br>technology (ICT)||Install fiber-optic links to neighboring capitals and<br>submarine cable.|<br>Provide universal access to GSM signal and public<br>broadband facilities: add 1,299 base stations for<br>urban and 2,144 for rural areas.|
|Power|<br><br>|Assuming trade stagnation, estimate optimal (least-<br>cost) investment strategies for generating,<br>transmitting, and distributing electricity in response<br>to demand increases.<br>Develop 222 MW of new generation capacity (no-<br>trade scenario).<br>This scenario could be replaced under trade<br>expansion with 1,540 MW of generation capacity<br>(and the needed megawatts in interconnectors).|<br>Achieve exogenously determined electrification<br>rates: Raise electrification from 1 percent to 5<br>percent of the population (10 percent urban, 3<br>percent rural).|
|Transport||Achieve regional and national connectivity with<br>good-quality 1-lane paved road by adding or<br>rehabilitating to good condition: 1,193 km for<br>national connectivity, 1,307 km for regional<br>connectivity, 1,085 km in urban areas, and 6,969 km<br>in rural areas.|<br>Provide rural road access to 100 percent of the<br>highest-value agricultural land based on current<br>production, plus providing rural road access to 50<br>percent of the nonproductive agricultural land with<br>highest potential.<br><br>Provide urban road access within 500 square<br>meters.|
|Water supply and<br>sanitation|||<br>Achieve Millennium Development Goals by<br>preserving the current mix of sanitation<br>technological options and clearing sector<br>rehabilitation backlog.<br><br>Increase population rates with access to improved<br>water to 67 percent and with access to improved<br>sanitation to 61 percent.<br><br>Increase access to improved water to 67 percent<br>by achieving the following technology mix: piped<br>water (38% urban, 0% rural), stand posts (13%<br>urban, 2% rural), safe wells (50% urban, 89%<br>rural).|

_Source:_ Mayer and others 2009; Rosnes and Vennemo 2009; Carruthers, Krishnamani, and Murray 2009; You and others 2009. _Note:_ GSM = global system for mobile communications; MW = megawatts.

Only by using an incremental but sustained approach to infrastructure improvements will the challenges faced by South Sudan be manageable. South Sudan has to deal with the difficulties of being predominantly rural and unpopulated, even as its institutional capacity is starting out from a very meager point. Such challenges call for the use of innovative and more modest technological combinations to allow for incremental improvements at a good development pace. The burden of needed spending in terms of the size of the economy is a daunting 23 percent of GDP (table 19).

In absolute terms, meeting the illustrative infrastructure targets would cost $1.4 billion per year over a decade. Capital expenditure would account for 80 percent of this requirement. The transport sector has the highest spending needs—about $711 million—largely driven by the requirement to provide for rural road accessibility that, at $362 million, represents the single-largest item on South Sudan’s spending agenda. This includes providing 100 percent access to the land currently hosting the highest agricultural value as well as expanding access to 50 percent of the land with the highest agricultural value potential not yet productive. If South Sudan were only to provide full rural accessibility to its already productive agricultural land, the spending needs associated with rural roads would drop to $40 million (with basic 39