Youth in South Sudan

Consequently, despite 72 per cent of the population being under 30 years old, serious youth concerns remain unaddressed in South Sudan. Instead, the government has taken imprudent actions that test the country’s volatility; ignored impending dilemmas to socioeconomic and political development; and failed to include the youth in its agenda. Post-independence, South Sudan’s government should have guaranteed the youth a safe, healthy, and productive transition to adulthood; such intervention would have enabled their participation in peace-building, good governance and social cohesion. The government’s failure to do this kept South Sudan from realizing its millennium development goals by 2015. It has, also, kept South Sudan far from achieving internal security and will likely hinder the country’s achievement of its sustainable development goals by 2030.

Throughout the history of South Sudan (or pre-independence southern Sudan), South Sudanese youth have established constructive morals. The moral development of South Sudanese youth largely occurred in the context of an armed struggle against the colonial and Khartoum regimes from 1955 to 1972. More specifically, this development began during the first rebellion, the Anya-nya I, and continued even until the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement of 1972 that granted semi-autonomy to the then southern regions. The youth contributed to the struggle, not only through military involvement but also through student union advocacy and community sensitization.

The Addis Ababa agreement eventually failed and, in 1983, under the leadership of late Dr John Garang, the southern Sudanese launched another armed struggle. This struggle continued until 2005, when a comprehensive peace agreement was signed in the Kenyan town of Naivasha. This agreement called for a six-year period under one Sudan followed by a referendum on southern independence. In 2010, the people of southern Sudan overwhelmingly voted for secession and, a year afterwards, South Sudan was born.

Given their active role in both civil wars, wartime advocacy and the referendum, the youth contributed significantly to the independence of South Sudan. The youth had a constructive role and, through social action, sought to involve themselves in the affairs of a nation characterized by inequality, injustice and captivity enforced by the North’s despotic regimes. Changing the narrative and direction of South Sudanese political discourse was another crucial role the youth of South Sudan played in reshaping their fates from colonial and subjugating powers, to liberation.