ABSTRACT
In June 1976 the Harvard Institute for International Development, at the invitation of the Sudanese government, undertook a preliminary exploration of the rural development problems of the Abyei District of South Kordofan Province. This district was selected for several reasons. It is important as a political symbol, as a district inhabited by southern people, the Ngok Dinka, but located within the boundaries of the North. It was ravaged during the civil war (1965-72), but since then has been singled out as a special area for rehabilitation and reintegration of North and South. In his Independence Day speech on January 1, 1977, in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, President Nimeiri reiterated a pledge to give the Abyei region his personal attention. While special in this political sense, Abyei is also typical of the remote subsistence agriculture and nomadic pastoralism that is found throughout the south and west of Sudan and the adjacent parts of Africa. It can provide a difficult, but realistic, testing ground for addressing the problems of rural development in semiarid Africa. The conclusion of the initial investigation team, consisting of Lester Gordon
and Stephen Joseph, was that a development program could be initiated, with foreign assistance, in Abyei to work with the people of the area in improving agricultural productivity, ameliorating health problems, undertaking infrastructural programs and making education more effective. They proposed a program that would address the problems of rural development in an integrated manner combining activities in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure, based on the broadest possible local participation so as to respond to local needs, minimize external costs, and help solve the inherent conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders who occupy the same area. They also recommended a follow up assessment by a combined Harvard-Sudanese team to consider the feasibility of the project, and to elaborate its design in terms of specific objectives, external inputs, demands on local administrative capacity and resources, timing, costs, etc.
