There are almost no roads connecting the south with the rest of the country and neighboring nations, and in most cases, the few available are either still mined or usable only during the dry season.

The meeting will bring together over 200 technical experts, investors, donors, NGO and government officials, who will discuss the role regional investors and traders can play in the development of southern Sudan.

The conference will offer a forum for the Sudanese private and public sectors to showcase opportunities in the oil, gas, power, infrastructure and agriculture sub-sectors.

There is a rush for business in southern Sudan now. The conference was a huge success and very soon, there would be a ' tsunami' ... the foreign investors who attended the meeting would start scrambling for opportunities in the oil, gas, power, infrastructure and agriculture sub-sectors.

We could probably let the [United Nations] slide another week if we had to, without upsetting the rest of the turf stakes schedule. We still need 10 days out of the next 30 without rain to keep it on schedule.

The country is so poor. It's one of the poorest nations in this hemisphere, with 60 to 70 percent of its population (approximately 8.1 million) illiterate,