Residents of Juba cleaned up the city in a USAID-funded program. Credit: ADRA

Improving Juba

The Southern Sudanese town of Juba endured two decades of isolation, as a government garrison cut it off from surrounding counties. The town suffered greatly from a lack of investment in basic services and infrastructure. 

The neglect was starkly visible as Juba's profile increased when the late vice president, Dr. John Garang, was buried there in August 2005, and the transition to form the Government of South Sudan started in earnest. Many shops and market areas were burned during riots that followed the death of Dr. Garang, and public sanitation was nearly non-existent.

Shortly after the funeral, USAID and its partner Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) initiated a $200,000 public campaign to engage local residents to clean up Juba. In November and December, 6,500 families in one section of the city benefited from a food-for-work initiative to clean the street in front of their houses. A cash-for-work component of the program pays 400 people each $4 a day for 25 days to clean public market areas. USAID and ADRA are also constructing four blocks of latrines in markets near the government ministries and near a school. A similar $250,000 program is also underway in Malakal.

USAID also provided four new water pumps to Juba's Urban Water Corporation to significantly increase the amount of water available to residents. The additional pumps were instrumental in alleviating a potential crisis in early December 2005 when two of the old pumps broke down, depriving the city of water for two days. In other projects, USAID is providing water leakage detection equipment and purification agents.

USAID Economic Growth and Trade

USAID Transition Initiatives

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