South Sudan: Peace at Last for South Sudan? That May Depend on the Price of Oil

Oct 16, 2018 | Okech Francis, Bloomberg
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A civil war has cast South Sudan into five years of bloody upheaval. The latest peace deal may hinge on something that’s almost as unpredictable: the oil price. A new power-sharing bid should fling open the doors of President Salva Kiir’s government and bring former rebels into the cabinet and parliament, with much of the funding for the expanded state coming from revitalized production of sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest oil reserves. But pegging peace to a resource that’s recently brought wildly varying revenue is ringing alarm bells.