I made several visits to South Sudan during the period 2014/15 and these were funded by the Budget Support Initiative (BSI) of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The visits culminated in a report that made the business case for non-oil revenue enhancement in South Sudan whilst building the new National Revenue Authority (NRA) over the period 2015-18.

The report provided a frank assessment of the risks foreseen as well as a high-level Logical Framework for the anticipated phase of support.  It also set out a monitoring and evaluation framework for this proposed support phase.

It was expected that the Government of the Republic of South Sudan and the international community would use the report as a roadmap to guide investment in the NRA.  It was also anticipated that the international community could choose to support discrete parts of the required investment and thus the report could be used as a means of coordinating and managing possible future donor investments in the NRA.

I also reviewed the draft law setting up the NRA and finalized the draft for submission to Cabinet and the Transitional National Legislative Assembly. The NRA was established in 2016 and South Sudan became a member of the East Africa Revenue Authorities group shortly thereafter.