South Sudan: Filling the skills void

Sudan’s civil war started in late 1955, a few months before Sudan gained independence from colonial Britain. It was in part about race and religion, about the people of the south asserting that they were different from but equal to northerners. It was a war that killed two million people – equivalent to 20-25 per cent of the region’s population today – either in raids or battles, or through the hunger and disease that spread around them.

The result is that most people were frozen in time for 50 years while the rest of the world – including city dwellers in neighbouring ­African countries – raced ahead.

In the audio slideshow below, Barney Jopson looks at the war’s legacy of a largely impoverished, unskilled local workforce which is stuggling to meet the employment needs of Sudan’s transport, healthcare and manufacturing sectors.