Governance

The New Deal implementation in South Sudan. "A South Sudanese civil society perspective paper"

As a pilot country for the New Deal implementation, South Sudan was described as a burgeoning
young nation steadily emerging from the crisis phase on the fragility spectrum into the reform
and rebuild phase. A critical analysis however of the events two years post-independence would
have revealed the true nature of the state of the nation. By late 2012, South Sudan had
conducted its first Fragility Assessment as a country volunteer in the pilot for the New Deal,
over a period of seven months, the Government of south Sudan and development partners
began the process of developing a New Deal Compact by engaging in sub national consultations
across the country. The purpose of the compact was to create a framework of improved
partnership and mutual accountability between the Government of South Sudan and her
development partners with the aim of fulfilling South Sudan’s development vision. In December
2013, the signing of the New Deal compact came to a halt due to the shortcomings associated
with the IMF staff monitored program. Shortly after, the country lapsed into a conflict
precipitated by a political crisis within the government and the ruling party of SPLM.
This perspective paper analyses the relevance of the New Deal under the current circumstances
created by the conflict in South Sudan and assesses the shortfalls of New Deal as a framework
for aid effectiveness through literature review and perspectives harvested from a cross section
of government, civil society and development partners.
The findings of this perspective paper by no means reflect a thorough interpretation of the full
effects of the conflict in South Sudan or the complex dynamics that characterises South Sudan as
a newly independent nation affected by numerous challenges.
It identifies areas for follow up actions and recommendations for establishing concrete building
blocks necessary for the launching of the New Deal process in South Sudan situation allowing.

When considering South Sudan’s prospects for 2050, perhaps the largest unknown is the potential impact of technology on the country’s economy, social relations and politics. Technology provides ever-evolving possibilities to transform the economy and the aid sector and to mitigate challenges related to climate change and demographic growth. There is little accurate data on use of technology in South Sudan. As such, this note relies on estimates of technology use and emerging regional and global technological developments, more often posing questions rather than providing specific predictions about the implications of future technology use.

This Better Aid Forum briefing paper on technology and innovation is the first publication of the BAF briefing paper series.

The Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility’s (CSRF) Better Aid Forum (BAF) is a series of events and discussions with different stakeholders to consider the long-term objectives and ambitions of the aid sector in South Sudan. It focuses beyond the timeframes of ongoing political and security dynamics in order to drive collective analysis about the approaches and principles that should underpin international engagement in South Sudan over the longer term.

In June 2019, a two-day event, the Better Aid Forum Experts Meeting, was held in Nairobi to reflect on findings from the Better Aid Forum process thus far, and debate how long-term trends may shape South Sudan’s context over the coming decades – and what this means for aid. The CSRF commissioned a number of input briefing papers that consider long-term trends underway in South Sudan, regionally, and globally that are likely to play a role in shaping South Sudan’s future.

In protracted crises in which formal governance structures are weak to nonexistent, people depend
heavily on local systems—both social and economic—to get by, often more than they depend on external
aid. Communities themselves are often the first responders in a crisis, reacting long before the arrival of
humanitarian actors. Research on resilience across a range of contexts demonstrates the importance of social
connections, particularly in times of crisis, in enabling populations to manage shocks and stresses.
Social connectedness manifests in many forms: Communities may rely on their immediate neighbors,
extended family or clan chieftains for food, access to economic opportunities, and psychosocial support, or
to negotiate safe passage when fleeing from a conflict or when later returning to their communities of origin.
It is thus critical that aid actors understand how social connections and external assistance interact to better
help conflict-affected populations cope and recover.
However, social connectedness is not always a source of household resilience. Social connectedness is
inherently linked to social hierarchies and power dynamics. “Connectedness” for some households may imply
marginalization or exclusion for others. By considering social connectedness throughout program cycles,
including in design, implementation, and evaluation phases, aid actors can more holistically understand bases
of household vulnerability as well as sources of resilience during crises. These nuanced insights can be used
to ensure that formal assistance reaches households in most need, including ones that may be excluded from
local support systems, to better achieve recovery and resilience outcomes. Equally, by understanding social
connectedness, aid actors may be able to strengthen, or at the very least not undermine local support systems.
This report is the last in a series from the Currency of Connections research initiative between Mercy Corps
and the Feinstein International Center at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, at Tufts
University with support from the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The series is based on
mixed methods research conducted among resident, internally displaced, and refugee communities in South
Sudan and Uganda. This report employs a sequential exploratory mixed method design to:
1 Investigate the ways in which households rely on their social connections in the context of protracted
conflict and instability, highlighting the ways in which external interventions influence these local systems
of coping and support;
2 Explore the linkages between households’ social connectedness and resilience by constructing and testing
a contextualized quantitative measure of social connectedness.

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.