By Jacob Dut Chol Riak, Ph.D.

Abstract

Community Development, known, as CD in petroleum industry has not only been neglected but has also not been critically studied. The pedagogy disregard in this area has led to matters of CD being remotely done. Until 20th Century, CD has appeared as a very interesting and pertinent area of research on matters of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While the study noted that South Sudan has a robust and matured petroleum industry in all the three Joint Operating Companies (JOCs) operating in block 3 & 7, block 1,2 & 4 and block 5A, its CD programmes, projects and activities are not driven by participatory (bottomup) approach. The common approach has been non-participatory (top-down) in which the communities have failed to take ownership of the projects and thus this has led to unsustainable community-related projects and subsequent collapse. The study proposed a model where community should be the first and the center for all matters of petroleum industry in South Sudan. This include extensive consultations to the communities from exploration, appraisal, development, drilling, production and decommissioning. This way, the CD activities also refer to CSR projects will have ownership and they will be sustainable. While doing extensive consultations, the study argues that Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) should be the guiding star. PRA details the problems, rank the problems and allow the community members to choose the most pressing problem, develop the Community Action Plan (CAP) and implement the projects. The study deployed case study of South Sudan petroleum industry by noting the activities of various CDs departments in all the JOCs. It concludes that whereas the petroleum industry is always argued to be capital intensive, it is proper to note that the petroleum industry is also people intensive and must be led by the community. South Sudan should ensure that local communities are extensively consulted during oil exploration, development, drilling, production and decommissioning. Community Development Committees (CDCs) should be strictly run by the local communities who directly elect their leaders and these leaders should ensure that CDCs are not politicized.

Keywords: South Sudan, petroleum industry, community development, approach, participatory, non-participatory, community development committees, joint operating companies.

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