This policy brief highlights the role that donor headquarters play in shaping the incentives and rules of the aid system, influencing implementing partner decisions, policies, and investments. It takes a deeper look at how some well-meaning policies can unexpectedly backfire, leading to new challenges, inefficiencies or in some cases, perpetuate conflict. To do so, it analyses five well-meaning policies common to many donors that can have unexpectedly negative results within conflict-affected countries, providing examples from…

This report focuses on the use of biometric registration technology in the delivery of humanitarian aid in South Sudan. The report identifies conflict sensitivity risks and opportunities associated with the use of biometric technology, especially in conflict-affected and remote areas. Finally, the report outlines some recommendations on how to use biometric technology in a more effective, efficient and conflict sensitive manner.

This paper reflects international actors’ prevalent and persistent assumptions about South Sudan and illustrates how these have shaped international engagement for the last two decades. Drawing on the eminent “aiding the peace” evaluation report of 2010 and recent developments in South Sudan, this paper offers relevant recommendations for policymakers and practitioners to identify solutions to present dilemmas.

The sudden outbreak of conflict in Sudan and the sheer amount of displacement has been an immense challenge. Given the scale of the needs and the number of partners involved, the overall humanitarian response in Renk has overcome many difficulties and has been making positive progress. This report highlights four areas to prioritise in Renk as the response transitions from emergency to a more longer-term intervention: onward movement, intercommunal tensions and violence, protection and SGBV,…

During an outbreak of violence in July 2016, a South Sudanese journalist was killed and international aid workers were brutally raped by government soldiers at the Terrain compound in South Sudan. Following intense international pressure, 11 soldiers were found guilty of various crimes by a specially created military court martial in 2018. As the first widely reported case in which perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence were held accountable in South Sudan, this verdict is an…

The politicisation of aid has made helping others increasingly dangerous. The fortified aid compound is now ubiquitous throughout the global borderland. It has become the signature architecture, for example, of the UN integrated mission. In examining these developments, the paper first looks at the potential for UN field-security training to normalise risk-aversion and the necessity, even desirability, of defensive living. Using the example of Sudan, the wider implications of aid bunkering, including its overlaps with…

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