USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa Raja Jandhyala appeared at a congressional hearing last week along with U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Ambassador Princeton Lyman, to discuss the current crisis in Sudan and the impending independence of South Sudan on July 9.
The hearing, titled “Africa’s Newest Nation: The Republic of South Sudan,” explored the challenges South Sudan will face as it becomes an independent nation, in keeping with the outcome of the January referendum on self-determination (PDF, 873kb) for southern Sudan, a key provision of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which USAID has helped implement. Nearly 99 percent of southern Sudanese voted in January for secession. Called by the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights, the hearing also explored the current crisis that has resulted from conflict that erupted in Sudan’s Abyei Area last month and in Southern Kordofan state this month, displacing some 170,000 people.
Read in her written testimony (PDF, 51kb) about how USAID is responding to the current crisis with humanitarian assistance, and how USAID is helping the Government of Southern Sudan prepare for statehood.
