African Social Development (Interdisciplinary – ASD).

This paper examines the politics of eligibility in South Sudanese social assistance by analysing how beneficiary selection, local authority, patronage risk and accountability safeguards meet within a fragile and resource-constrained welfare environment. The Study argues that eligibility is not a neutral technical sequence; it is a political-administrative process through which scarcity is translated into lists, entitlements, exclusions and public claims. In South Sudan, social assistance operates under high humanitarian need, displacement, food insecurity, weak state capacity, limited fiscal predictability and strong local power structures. These conditions make targeting necessary, yet they also increase the risk that targeting can be captured by patronage, kinship pressure, armed authority, elite brokerage or administrative discretion. Using a qualitative political econom y design supported by document analysis, the article reviews policy frameworks, project appraisal data, public finance reform material and social accountability literature. It develops a four-part eligibility accountability model linking need-based targeting, transparent registration, independent verification and grievance redress. The findings show that the strongest safeguards are not single tools such as biometric registration or community validation alone, but combined systems that connect clear criteria, public communication, auditable data, payment integrity, complaints handling and routine social monitoring. The article concludes that social assistance in South Sudan can reduce vulnerability and strengthen state legitimacy only where eligibility decisions are protected from political allocation and made visible to communities through accountable procedures.