Introduction

Sudan has captured the world's attention for hosting the African continent's longest standing violent conflict. The war between Sudan's northern and southern regions has resulted in some 2 million deaths, the internal displacement of approximately 4 million citizens, and an estimated 400,000–600,000 refugees. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the Southern opposition was signed in 2005, but the return of displaced people is still incomplete and has not yet taken on its expected massive proportion. Secured access to land, property, and natural resources is a pre-condition for the return of millions of people displaced by war. Failure to provide for this may jeopardize the ongoing conflict transformation and peace consolidation efforts.

Southern Sudan is one of the least developed areas in the world. Basic infrastructure and services are not found in most regions of the country, and even the national and state capitals require considerable infrastructure improvement. There is an urgent need to attract investment in rural and urban areas of Southern Sudan to boost the recovery and development process. There are some signs that this process will go along with efforts to privatize land and natural resources to promote investment. This may jeopardize the return of internally displaced people (IDP) and refugees, especially when they find out that their former assets are no longer available. In early post-conflict situations there is always a danger that investment efforts have a speculative, extractive character with the ordinary citizen in the losing end.