National Archives of South Sudan

National Archive of South Sudan
Agency overview
Formed 2005
Headquarters Juba, South Sudan
Employees 10
Parent department Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports

The National Archive of South Sudan is located in Juba, South Sudan. The collection consists of a tens of thousands of Sudanese and Southern Sudanese government documents running from the early 1900s, through the independence of Sudan in 1956 and two civil wars, to the late 1990s.[1] The archives are run by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in Juba, South Sudan.[2]

History

Government records suffered serious damage in Southern Sudan during Sudan's first and second civil wars. Many documents were destroyed by heat, termites, floods, humidity, fire, and neglect.[3] Many of these records were gathered together in Juba in the 1970s and early 1980s by Douglas H. Johnson after the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972). During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005), these documents were scattered, neglected, and sometimes destroyed.[4][5]

South Sudan archive storage tent in Juba, 2010

Emergency work on the restoration of the Archive began in 2005, during the period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, with support from the US Ambassadors’ Cultural Fund.[6] This involved the erection of a tent near the administrative headquarters of Central Equatoria state in Juba, where documents from the Archive were collected "in a disordered state" from the various locations where they had been stored in Juba during the war.[7][8]

In 2010, the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) and the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) began a second phase of emergency conservation and digitization, which involved the provision of archive boxes and digitization equipment and training in digitisation techniques and archiving practice for South Sudanese. A third phase, funded by Michigan University and implemented by RVI, followed in 2013 and continued the work of emergency conservation and digitisation.[9]

At South Sudan's independence ceremony in Juba in 2011, Pa'gan Amum Okiech, then Secretary General of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), announced that the old Sudanese flag lowered after independence would be kept at the National Archive in memory of the neighboring country's "shared history."[10][11]

The project has received support from the Government of Norway for the construction of a permanent South Sudan National Archive Building.[12][13] The Norwegian Government and the Prince Claus Foundation also provided funding for the renovation of a temporary building in Munuki, Juba, to provide temporary accommodation for the Archive.[14] The construction of the new archives building was scheduled to begin in July 2014 and finish in July 2015.[15] The planned construction of a permanent archive was disrupted by instability in South Sudan.[16]

Collections

The contents of the archive range from the early 1900s to the 1980-1990s and are often the only detailed records of previous local South Sudanese administrations in existence.


References

  1. ↑ "National Archive of South Sudan". riftvalley.net. Rift Valley Institute (RVI). 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  2. ↑ Kindersley, Nicki (n.d.). "East African History and Archives" (PDF). internallydisplaced.wordpress.com. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ Wheeler, Skye (September 25, 2007). "Documents for Sudan's disputed border lost". reuters. Juba, South Sudan. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  4. ↑ "National Archive of South Sudan". riftvalley.net. Rift Valley Institute (RVI). 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  5. ↑ Kindersley, Nicki (March 14, 2014). "South Sudan National Archives: New country, New Paperwork". imperialandglobal.exeter.ac.uk. The Imperial and Global History Network. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  6. ↑ The U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation Annual 2005/2006 Report (PDF). U.S. Department of State. 2006. p. 17.
  7. ↑ "National Archive of South Sudan". riftvalley.net. Rift Valley Institute (RVI). 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  8. ↑ Fletcher, Pascal (May 24, 2014). "South Sudan's history emerges - from a tent". Reuters. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  9. ↑ "National Archive of South Sudan". riftvalley.net. Rift Valley Institute (RVI). 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  10. ↑ Gallab, Abdullahi (2014). Their Second Republic: Islamism in the Sudan from Disintegration to Oblivion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. p. 180.
  11. ↑ Carlstrom, Gregg (July 9, 2011). "South Sudan celebrates 'new beginning'". aljazeera. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Norway Offers National Archive to South Sudan". Catholic Radio Network, South Sudan. South Sudan. July 11, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  13. ↑ United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) (April 29, 2013). National Archives of the Republic of South Sudan Design Brief (PDF) (Report). UNOPS. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  14. ↑ "National Archive of South Sudan". riftvalley.net. Rift Valley Institute (RVI). 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  15. ↑ UNESCO Office in Juba. "National Archives". unesco.org. UNESCO. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  16. ↑ Godfrey, Timothy (2016). "Timothy Godfrey spoke at the July NSW Branch meeting on his experience as a records manager with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan.". Australian Society of Archivists NSW Branch Newsletter: 3.

See also

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