Stabilizing the South Sudan Pound to Enable Productive Development
Publication Summary
This Brief explores the causes of South Sudan’s spiraling inflation and depreciating currency, as well as the policy interventions needed to stabilize the currency and by extension, the economy. The immediate cause of the crisis is clear: pipeline disruptions due to the ongoing conflict across the border in Sudan have brought a sudden halt to South Sudan’s main —and, for all intents and purposes, only— source of hard currency, oil. But the proximate cause should not be allowed to hide the structural, long-run reasons for South Sudan’s fragility. Our country remains a commodity mono-exporter with little to fall back on when oil revenues are disrupted.
Constantine Bartel's Biography
Constantine O. Bartel is an economist with backgrounds in agriculture trade and development. A long-time lead consultant and author of UN flagship reports, co-Author of the 2020 UNCTAD Least Developed Countries on productive capacities, the 2019 Economic Development in Africa Report (EDA), author of the AfCFTA national implementation strategies for Cameroon, Togo, South Sudan and Chad, and co-author of the brief on WTO reforms to negotiate multilateral modalities to enhance micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Constantine holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.