Population, Poverty, and Underdevelopment in the Southern Sudan

Abstract

The Christian and animist population of the Southern Sudan is largely composed of black Africans, estimated to number 5·3 million in 1983, as against the 15·3 million, predominantly Arabic and Muslim, who inhabit the Northern Sudan. The economy of the Southern Sudan, comprised of the three semi-autonomous regions of Bahr El Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria, remains one of the least developed in sub-Saharan Africa. The great majority of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, although some limited cash income is generated from the sale of surplus crops, and nomadic pastoralism is also widely practised. Only about three per cent of the inhabitants live in the three regional capitals of Wau, Malakal, and Juba, and they have to depend heavily for work in the public sector and small-scale informal activities.