Governance

This rapid literature review finds that the medium- to long-term effects of Covid-19 on geopolitics in East Africa are unknown. In the immediate term, the pandemic is likely to put stress on economies and healthcare systems, and thereby have the potential to exacerbate regional conflicts. It is also likely lead to East African countries re-evaluating their relationships with other countries in the region and further afield as they seek financial help from abroad (e.g. debt relief), and to build more resilience to global shocks. This rapid literature review outlines the main geopolitical issues in the region and notes where authors have suggested Covid-19 may lead to a change. For the purposes of this review, East Africa is taken to include Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. This literature review notes the main issues for the region, and where Covid-19 has been posited to have an effect. The evidence base for this question is weak as most analyses of East African geopolitics pre-date Covid-19. This literature review has therefore included policy briefs, blogs and news articles alongside peer-reviewed articles and longer reports. Nevertheless, discussions of the effects of Covid-19 are focused on the short-term effects on health systems and economies, with some discussion of internal politics (e.g. increased authoritarianism or instability). Where longer-term geopolitics are mentioned, discussion is brief and conclusions are tentative.

The Politics of Numbers: On Security Sector Reform in South Sudan, 2005-2020 is the first comprehensive study of what has happened to South Sudan’s military forces since the end of the Sudanese second civil war in 2005. Based on extensive fieldwork in the country, the report argues that all of the international community’s efforts to create a unified armed forces in South Sudan have paradoxically only escalated the process of fracturing that led to the current civil war.

Through a rigorous analysis of the current military situation in South Sudan, the report shows that the current peace process has not brought about peace, but the intensification of a war economy based on predation and increasingly ethnicized military forces. Peace, this report argues, is not the opposite of war, but merely one of its modes.

This Weekly Review applauds the power of human innovation and its success. It celebrates the strength of the American democratic institutions, which has enabled the American people to weather what was a substantial threat to a long-established institutional tradition of peaceful transfer of power. The hope is that such lessons could also help emerging countries, such as South Sudan, at the very least, to appreciate the value of rule-based institutions. Moreover, the review highlights the perils of predicating public institutions on personalities. The rest of the review revisits the definition of institutions, brief context and state of institutions in South Sudan, and concludes with some recommendations

In this selection of articles on the Future and Implementation of the R-ARCSS in South Sudan scholars/experts including Christopher Zambakari, Remember Miamingi, Peter Adwok Nyaba and Jok Madut Jok explore the R-ARCSS and its implementation by focusing on different issues such as the delays in the implementation of the agreement, the security sector reform, and the number of states.

This report explores the important role chiefs’ courts play in food security and in addressing hunger in South Sudan by reallocating food to vulnerable community members. Their role is particularly important in view of famine and recurrent extreme food insecurity affecting South Sudan. The authors suggest that chief courts potentially offer useful data for famine early warning and responses but also underline that humanitarian actors engaging with chiefs’ courts should do so with a contextually informed and locally nuanced approach.

Land governance in South Sudan is not only central to nation building, but also a major contributor to conflicts, poverty and under development in the post conflict context. To reinforce the crucial role of land rights and the importance of gender equality in access of the rights, the Sustainable Development Goals indicators 1.4.2; 5.a.1 and 5.a.2 monitors the progress of security of land and property rights for both men and women and countries’ legal framework ability to guarantee women’s equal rights to land. The crisis in South Sudan has led to an increase in land-related disputes. Women’s housing, land and property rights are the most affected which significantly increases their vulnerability. Supporting displaced women to change their lives through land governance is significant in securing economic independence toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Referring to the case of Wau county the paper highlights efforts undertaken to enhance women’s access to land to consolidate peace in South Sudan through improving awareness on women’s rights to land, enhancing institutional capacities from the local to national levels and supporting the land policy formulation process with focus on strengthening the gender perspectives. The paper explores implementation of innovative approaches in fit-for-purpose land administration to enhance women’s access to land and entrenching of gender equality in the development of land policy and land administration practices. With the implementation of the peace agreement, it is recognized that upholding and securing women’s rights to land is crucial in facilitating resettlement, reducing recurrence of conflict and contributing to sustainable peace and stability for better livelihoods envisioned in the Sustainable Development Goals.

International, national and local political discourses often portray the Murle community as principal aggressors and the source of much of the instability affecting former Jonglei State in South Sudan. Although such negative stereotypes are partially driven by actual events, they are also manipulated by certain groups to serve political purposes and informed by the assumption that there is a lack of credible authority structure among the Murle. Changing Power Among Murle Chiefs investigates how Murle customary authorities—in particular, red chiefs—navigate and negotiate political, military and spiritual authority, while simultaneously challenging the view that Murle society has no organic leaderships structures. The challenge is not the absence of leadership structures but rather their abundance and the difficulties they pose for the ability of outsiders to navigate them.

In April 2016, seventeen chiefs from different parts of South Sudan gathered in Kuron Holy Trinity Peace Village, in Eastern Equatoria, to discuss the role of customary authority in governance—past and present—and their own contribution to peacemaking and a future political transition. The Chiefs’ meeting at Kuron was the first time that traditional leaders from areas on opposing sides of the conflict had met in South Sudan since 2013. The discussions, led by the chiefs, lasted three days and covered a wide range of topics including the changing role of traditional leadership, the effects of war, the politicization of chiefship, customary law, security and peacebuilding. This report draws on a transcript of the discussions at Kuron to record the words of the chiefs on a number of these subjects.

Federalism has once again become a central issue in political debate in South Sudan. The idea has a long pedigree in the country’s political history, signifying different things at different times. In Federalism in the history of South Sudanese political thought, Douglas Johnson explains how the idea evolved in the colonial era as part of the southern search for political identity. His paper discusses attitudes towards federalism and the ways it was presented from before Sudan’s independence in 1956, up to South Sudan’s independence today.

The R-ARCSS was designed as an all-encompassing package of measures that would help end the civil war in South Sudan. Yet, in reality it does not efficiently address some of the root causes of the conflict. More than addressing those in a manner that connects both bottom-up and top-down drivers of tension, it focuses on elements of a power-sharing agreement and paves the way for resource sharing arrangements.

This brief examines how and why grievances emerge and how these can be instrumentalized by national and local-level actors to secure access to territory and resources, with significant effect on the political stability and security at the local level. It takes the debate around the number of states as an example of how administrative decisions on sub-state boundaries and the administrative power that derive from those decisions can re-enforced competition over governance and territory. This is best illustrated by increased politization of disputes between the Padang Dink and the Shilluk living on the east bank of the White Nile. The brief ends with a number of takeaways for international actors working to support the peace process in South Sudan.