Peacebuilding

South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in 2011 after nearly 40 years of civil war, was embroiled in a
new devastating conflict at the end of 2013. This happened when political disputes coupled with preexisting ethnic and political fault lines became brutal. This conflict has mostly targeted civilians and most often, ethnic groups, and warring parties have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The conflict has resulted in a major humanitarian crisis, mass displacement and mass atrocities against South Sudanese citizens. Notwithstanding, instability in South Sudan has made the country one of the most dangerous countries for humanitarian aid workers in the world, especially as majority of them have lost their lives during their operation. In view of this, the article seeks to interrogate the main driving forces that triggered the deadly conflict and also the ramifications brought upon the population as well as the country.

This report is the result of a short-term study on the traditional and changing roles of gender and women in peace-building. The study involved field research in five locations (Aweil, Bentiu, Bor, Rumbek and Torit). The purpose of the study is to research how the traditional and changing roles of women/ girls and men/boys, conflict dynamics in South Sudan and to recommend to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), potential partners, on possible further peace initiatives. This study contributes to UNDP’s work with women, with regard to resolving peace and security issues in the region. The study offers critical analysis in understanding the unique potential contribution of South Sudanese women in national reconciliation and peacebuilding. The study aims to enable the government of South Sudan and international donors to more effectively mainstream gender initiatives into their policies, programs and future activities.

Previous research has primarily focused on the EU’s high-profile involvement as direct mediator in peace negotiations. Conversely, less attention has been devoted to the EU’s support to third parties’ mediation efforts, which is a significant component of its mediation activities. Addressing this research gap, this article develops a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of EU mediation support, identifying key mediation support techniques and the conditions for their success. In terms of mediation support techniques, the EU may rely on “endorsement”, “coordination”, “assistance”, and “lending leverage” to empower and steer third party mediators in line with its mediation objectives and values. We illustrate the utility of the conceptual framework for the EU’s support to IGAD in mediating in South Sudan’s civil war. We find that the EU has contributed significantly to IGAD’s empowerment in terms of endorsement, coordination, assistance, and lending leverage. Simultaneously, our analysis also points to important challenges in the EU-IGAD relationship, which relate to challenges concerning strategic engagement with IGAD’s internal politics that are marked by diverging interests and ties of its member states to the conflict parties.

This rapid literature review collates lessons from major evaluations and learning reviews from development, state-building and stabilisation programming in South Sudan since independence in 2011. Key findings include: a) Donors in South Sudan have had to transition from humanitarian to development aid and back and forth a number of times as conflict has broken out. Donors need options to cope with a nonlinear state-building process as South Sudan’s political settlement has been, and will remain, very challenging; b) The sustainability of programmes in South Sudan has been limited as typically funding will not continue beyond the project, and as there is a high turnover of donor staff due to the difficult and dangerous living and working conditions. This is a major challenge for donors; c) Many donor programmes are identified as being “relevant” to the context and needs. However, South Sudan’s security situation holds back the achievements of many programmes. This rapid literature review found a lot of evaluations and reviews of programming in South Sudan, with many focussed on humanitarian programming (not covered in this query), and development programming, and few focussed on stabilisation. This review has endeavoured to only include evaluations of programmes that occurred after 2011, however, where it does include papers that analyse the period before and after 2011, it attempts to separate off only the lessons relevant to the post-2011 period (e.g. it only includes a little bit of information on the Multi-Donor Trust Fund for Southern Sudan (MDTF-SS) as this closed in 2012) (Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies, 2013). The literature is mostly produced by practitioners, policy-makers, and think tanks.

As South Sudan’s conflicts, which began in December 2013, have fragmented and expanded, the hunger crisis has deepened and widened. Over 40 per cent of the population is severely food insecure, 60 per cent higher than at this time last year. On 20 February, the UN declared that some 100,000 people are already living in famine conditions in Leer and Mayendit counties. But some 5.5 million are at risk unless urgent measures are taken to reduce conflict and enable humanitarians to deliver more aid safely.
Conflict among various factions has prompted massive displacement that in turn has prevented farming, while looting and cattle rustling have destroyed many people’s assets. Some 1.9 million civilians are internally displaced persons (IDPs), 224,000 of whom have fled to UN peacekeeping bases. Another 1.6 million have found refuge in
neighbouring countries. Currency depreciation, hyperinflation and insecurity have led to declining trade and soaring food prices.
Addressing the humanitarian crisis is hugely expensive. In its 2017 appeal, the UN requested $1.6 billion; so far, only $439 million has been pledged. Helping starving people also is perilous; 82 humanitarian workers have been killed. In the absence of bolder policy decisions to reduce fighting, humanitarian actors will remain at the forefront of the myriad internal conflicts and, with their lives at risks and budgets under pressure, be able to do less as needs continue to grow.
To mitigate the worst effects of the conflicts, the peace process oversight body – the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) – and its partners need to support ceasefire implementation, as well as local dialogue and negotiations between the government and warring factions. To prevent famine in the meantime, however, the humanitarian appeal needs to be fully funded. To ensure that the aid reaches those most in need, all actors should avoid politicising it. Finally, the two existing and third needed humanitarian corridors through Sudan must be kept consistently open.