The different agendas for urban reconstruction espoused by the leaders of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS), by the Equatorian leaders in the Central Equatoria State (CES) Government, and by Bari community leaders, were at the root of the lack of progress in urban development in the capital during the Interim Period. When the SPLM began establishing the institutions of GoSS in Juba, they were confronted with a war-torn town that appeared wholly unprepared to serve as the region’s capital. Most of the town’s inhabitants had no access to running water, electricity, or sanitation facilities. According to a November 2005 report by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 55% of the inhabitants of Juba fetched water from common wells, 23% bought untreated water from water tank trucks, and 22% took water directly from the River Nile. Of the twelve residential quarters surveyed, none was supplied with electrical power. Juba town lacked a sewage system, and only a limited number of latrines were provided throughout the town centre and residential quarters. The few available health centres were supported by churches and Non-Governmental Organ-izations (NGOs), of which the most notable was the International Committee for the Red Cross. Due to the unavailability and high cost of building materials, most residents lived in tukls made of mud brick and grass roofs (Photograph 1). The few permanent structures dated from the colonial period and were in severe disrepair. The agents of reconstruction tasked with rebuilding imagined a town that was a ‘blank slate’ waiting to be filled by the technological ideas of planners.

A particular target for intervention was modernization of the land administration system, run by the CES Government. A March 2005 Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) report states: ‘In order to be able to manage, deliver and account for the range of critical programmes needed to accelerate development in Southern Sudan, the entire public service, including personnel and systems, has to be built up virtually from scratch’. Capacity building and urban planning were made high priorities by SPLM leaders and their international partners, whose assessments of the needs of Juba formed the basis of several reports identifying the key challenges inhibiting the reconstruction process in the town, and detailing the required steps for urban development.