This paper presents five lessons on community engagement in the context of the Humanitarian- Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus in South Sudan. More coordinated and collaborative approaches to community engagement have potential to address weaknesses in current approaches that prioritise the short-term information needs of the aid system at the expense of community priorities.

The lessons focus on: (1) designing community engagement processes that respond to community priorities, capacities, and preferences, (2) ensuring less fragmented approaches to community engagement across humanitarian, development and peace initiatives, (3) ensuring that communities have the time, resources and information that are needed to meaningfully engage with the aid sector, (4) promoting more robust, yet contextualised, participation of local government in community engagement efforts, and (5) creating incentives for implementing partners to better respond to community priorities and to coordinate their community engagement efforts with other agencies.

Together, these lessons frame an approach to community engagement that goes beyond stand-alone projects, informs ongoing thinking about how to create platforms for collaboration, and strengthens capacities of communities, local government actors, and aid agencies to coordinate among each other in ways that more effectively and sustainably address drivers of humanitarian need and conflict in South Sudan. If taken forward with a wider shift in mindsets, this has potential to contribute towards a more meaningful change in the relationship between aid and the communities it is meant to serve.