SSNBSS Chairperson Augustino Ting Mayai. (-)

The new chairperson of the South Sudan National Bureau of Statistics, Augustino Ting Mayai is a revered academician, who until his appointment, was the Managing Director of the Sudd Institute.

President Kiir sacked Dr. Isaiah Chol Aruai, one of the longest public officials, and appointed Dr. Mayai as a replacement, in a Republican Decree announced on Thursday.

Dr. Mayai Augustino is a demographic and development specialist with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

He has been the founding Research Director of Sudd Institute, serving in this capacity for at least a decade, and currently studies how state effectiveness affects child health outcomes in South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Mayai also taught as an assistant professor at the University of Juba’s School of Public Service, teaching graduate program research methods, program evaluation, and econometrics.

He is an experienced applied statistician, with over 10 years of hands-on analysis of national development data.

Mr. Mayai is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, a former University of Oxford Research Fellow, a current Research Board Member of WHO’s Sub-Saharan African region, and a current principal investigator for FCDO and University of Oxford’s funded research projects in South Sudan.

He has published extensively on South Sudan’s current affairs, with focus on conflict/humanitarian crisis, health, security, education, development, and gender.

The official is also a regular policy consultant for the World Bank, UNICEF, Save the Children, UNDP, UN Women, UNFPA, WFP/FAO, and Government of South Sudan.

Some information in this story was obtained from Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP)