After 40 years of civil war, Southern Sudan has the lowest primary enrollment rates in the world at 20%.  Arguably there is not a place in the world where AED’s assistance to improve education systems is needed more.  AED was awarded the Southern Sudan Technical Assistance Program (SSTAP) in June 2007.  The program has a budget of $8 million and will continue for four and a quarter years until 2011.  This EQUIP 2 Associate Award consolidates and builds upon the results achieved between September 2005 and June 2007 under a previous EQUIP 2 award to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) in Juba. The award works in the areas of policy development, planning, and program implementation, with a particular focus on planning and implementation of programs to expand and improve the preparation of teachers. The EQUIP 2 SSTAP continues to place a technical advisor to build capacity at MoEST headquarters while, importantly, placing technical advisors at state ministries in Wau, Malakal and Yambio. The State Advisors help build capacity within the state ministries to work efficiently and implement programs at the state, county and school levels. The SSTAP emphasizes strengthening linkages between SMoEs and GoSS-MoEST, thus assisting the entire education system to deliver enhanced quantity and quality of education at the local level. The Technical Advisors, while being based in these three states initially, will work to build capacity in all 10 State Ministries over the four years.