JUBAI, Sudan – In the rugged plains of southern Sudan, Africa’s longest war dashed the simplest hopes of two generations.

Yet the signing of a peace agreement between Sudan’s regime and southern rebels has, at last, cleared the way for an ambitious reconstruction and development scheme.

Last month, international donors meeting in Oslo pledged $4.5 billion for southern Sudan.

The task they have shouldered is monumental. This vast area has known only 10 years of peace since 1955.

The last round of a brutal conflict between the Arab-dominated regime and black African rebels cost 2 million lives.

Today, an area more than twice the size of Britain possesses hardly a single mile of tarred road. Last year, only 2,000 boys and 500 girls completed elementary school – in a region with 7.5 million people. The consequence is that three-quarters of adults are illiterate. Worse, almost 70% of infants are malnourished. One child in four will not live to see a fifth birthday.

Unicef distributes pencils and exercise books to Juba’s 120 threadbare schools, 85 of which have no buildings and hold classes under trees or in mud shelters. Donors plan to build new schools and restore existing ones, but there are no local contractors capable of doing the job, nor any supplies of building material.

Juba was the only large town in southern Sudan that remained under government control throughout the fighting. Rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army surrounded Juba and besieged its 250,000 inhabitants for 20 years. Even today, it remains isolated. Land mines block every dirt road in the surrounding bush, and it is supplied by aircraft flying from Khartoum, 800 miles to the north. Everything comes from the capital, meaning that basic essentials are two or three times more expensive than anywhere else in Sudan.