Disarmament is seen as a key means of preventing conflict recurrence. Women are disproportionately affected by weapons: small arms and light weapons used during conflict are often used post-conflict to commit gender-based violence, and explosive weapons in populated areas can severely limit women’s access to public spaces. Women are involved both as part of armed groups, and as the leaders of campaigns against weapons. Despite these experiences, women are routinely excluded from disarmament negotiations. In…
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Drawing on the literature on the temporalities of infrastructure, this article focuses on the cyclical assertion of centralized authority through road-building in South Sudan, where roads are repeatedly built, projects paused, roads ruined, and then rebuilt again. The landscapes of South Sudan are littered with the decaying infrastructure projects of previous governments and political visions, seemingly pointing to a past of failed futures and the limits of government power. At the same time, the recurrent…
Although fraught with numerous implementation issues, the Revitalized Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict (RARCSS) has been credited with bringing relative stability to South Sudan since 20181. The Agreement mandated the creation of a Unity Government, setting the stage for the Transitional Period, which is due to end in 2023. The moment of truth for this peace agreement is the holding of elections proscribed for the end of the Transitional Period. Although the elections mandated…
Localisation, as it aims to shift power in the humanitarian system, will involve the increased inclusion of local faith actors, those national and local faith-affiliated groups and organisations that are often first, and last, responders in crises and have been responding in humanitarian contexts for many years, but often in parallel to humanitarian coordination mechanisms. In primary research in South Sudan with local faith actors and international humanitarian actors, this article aims to examine the…
This report explores both the nexus (small n), as a way of programming, and the HDP Nexus approach (capital N) also called the Triple Nexus, as the approach promoted by the UN and OECD/ DAC, to include necessary ways organizations must work together to be able to o!er programming that achieves our desired impacts.
This report presents the results from a survey of the political economy of checkpoints along the major trade routes in South Sudan. Between April 2019 and April 2021, enumerators made 13 journeys along major overland and river routes and collected detailed information on the number and location of checkpoints, who operates them, who pays, and how much. The study’s lead authors also conducted interviews with, and consulted data provided by, a variety of stakeholders in…
This memo summarises research on local agreements and community level mediation undertaken by the Conflict Research Programme (CRP) in five sites – DRC, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria in collaboration with the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP) and the Center for Security Studies in Zurich, Switzerland. The overall conclusion is that local talks and community-level mediation can contribute to a peace logic. They are more likely to contribute to do so if they involve…
The October/November 2020 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis process in South Sudan broke down when the South Sudan IPC Technical Working Group (TWG) was unable to reach technical consensus on the severity of food insecurity in six critical counties. In response, and following a request from the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), the three IPC resource partners – United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office…
African borderlands – such as those between South Sudan, Uganda and Congo – are often presented by analysts as places of agency and economic opportunity, in contrast to hardened, securitized borders elsewhere. We emphasize, however, that even such relatively porous international borders can nevertheless be the focus of significant unease for borderland communities. Crossing borders can enable safety for those fleeing conflict or trading prospects for business people, but it can also engender anxieties around…
The purpose of the paper is to reflect on peacebuilding approaches and methodologies adopted by the UK’s Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund (POF) within conflict affected communities for the purpose of drawing relevant lessons for peacebuilding interventions in South Sudan. The paper identifies both learning that strengthens peacebuilding engagement and informs what can be done better when engaging conflict affected communities, and pitfalls and poor practice to be avoided. This paper is written from a peacebuilding practitioner…