Effect of conflicts in south Sudan on the welfare of the population: a case of Central Equatorial Region

Abstract

The main objective of the study is to analyze the effect of conflicts in South Sudan on the welfare of the population. Specifically, the study sought to address; ( i) the influence of conflict on the food security, ( ii) the influence of conflicts on the education and welfare improving activities such as income, sources of drinking to address issue of nutrition and finally (iii ) the association of societal basic utility such as access to electricity. To operationalize these objectives, the researcher employed univariate data analysis to examine the perception of respondents on the impact of conflicts in South Sudan, bivariate analysis (ANOVA table) to study the relationship between the welfare and the conflict experiences of the respondents. The study utilized a non-probability sampling method with the purpose of selecting the one hundred and ten (110) respondents into this study because not all south Sudanese citizens were displaced or victims of December 2013 conflict since the study was aimed at getting as more relevant and valuable information for the research as possible. The highest percent (57.3%) of the respondents with a count of 63 comprised males, whereas females with a count of 47 accounted for 42.7% who were married, 31.9 percent were single, 9.1 were divorced and 5.5 were widowed yet almost half of the sample population had only primary education (20.0%) or no education at all (13.7%), 24.6% had completed secondary education and 36.4% had obtained a university degree while the smallest percentage (5.5%) had attained a master’s degree. The study revealed a significant difference in mean monthly income between those that experienced conflicts (7045) and those that did not experience conflicts (41641) at all since p-value is less than the critical value (0.05). Given the above, the researcher highlights conflict as a hindrance to engagement in economic and socio development due to the public’s‟ compromised freedom to freely participate in trade, due to change in businesses, and due to the alarming threats of killings thus frustrating development in the region. Access to security breeds peace and allows free access to education, safe and clean water and sewerage systems, electricity provisions and food production. This boosts productivity among the nationals of a country and should therefore be highly promoted in order to reinforce the public’s‟ engagement the country’s socio-economic development.