WIDER Working Paper No. 2013/120 South Sudan’s capability trap Building a state with disruptive innovation Greg Larson,1 Peter Biar Ajak,2 and Lant Pritchett3 October 2013 Abstract The prevailing aid orthodoxy works well enough in stable environments, but is ill-equipped to navigate contexts of volatility and fragility. The orthodox approach is adept at solving straightforward technical or logistical problems (paving roads, building schools, immunizing children), but often struggles or outright fails when faced with complex, adaptive challenges (fighting corruption, upholding the rule of law, establishing democratic institutions). South Sudan, the world’s newest country, presents a post-conflict environment full of complex, adaptive challenges. Prior to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 South Sudan had no formal institutions of self-governance. During the Comprehensive Peace Agreement period and after independence in 2011, foreign development agencies have contributed billions of dollars of aid and technical assistance to ‘build capacity’ in the …/ Keywords: state-building, capability, governance, post-conflict, innovation, South Sudan JEL classification: H4, K4, L3, O2 Copyright © UNU-WIDER 2013 1Harvard Kennedy School,
[email protected] 2University of Cambridge and Center for Strategic Analyses and Research,
[email protected] 3Harvard Kennedy School and Center for Global Development,
[email protected] This working paper has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project ‘Building State Capability through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)’ directed by Lant Pritchett and Matt Andrews, which is a component of the larger UNU-WIDER programme ‘Foreign Aid: Research and Communication (ReCom)’. UNU-WIDER gratefully acknowledges specific programme contributions from the governments of Denmark (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Danida) and Sweden (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency—Sida) for ReCom.