The combination of South Sudan’s historical and geographical isolation, extreme fragility to conflict, oil dependence, and extremely low socio-economic conditions represents a formidable and almost unique development challenge. The Republic of South Sudan emerged from decades of conflict in 2011 as the world’s newest independent country. In an extremely fragile country like South Sudan, reducing extreme poverty is closely linked to finding paths out of recurrent cycles of conflict and fragility. Hence, the systematic country diagnostic (SCD) focuses primarily on poverty reduction. The SCD builds on the 2011 world development report (WDR) analytical framework. Central to the process is the need to build legitimate institutions for security, justice, and jobs. The framework takes into account different time frames, recognizing that at any point in time the required actions involve a blend of measures, which can have an impact in the short, medium, and long term. As the process to strengthen institutions takes root, the country can increase its focus on the institutional and structural issues that underpin poverty reduction, both through the delivery of essential social services, the jobs or livelihood or growth agenda, and the equity or vulnerability agenda. The framework also provides a first order filter to identify broad priority areas, in terms of both constraints and solution areas, going forward.

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