This meta-analysis offers an overview of the literature on governance in South Sudan in the CSRF repository by exploring salient and timely questions for donor-funded programming. These questions focus on the reason why local governance structures differ in South Sudan and the implications for aid actors; the relations between national, state, and local governance institutions and the implications for state building endeavours; the impacts of conflict and food security induced displacement on governance and the…
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
This analysis provides a snapshot on the diverse role of chiefs in development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding engagements in South Sudan. It highlights their prominent role in local governance, service delivery, community mobilisation, allocation of resources, etc., and thus showcasing the need for aid actors to better understand their role and interaction with aid provision. Lastly, the analysis piece provides a set of concrete recommendations for aid workers and peacebuilders in the interaction with these actors.
This report explores the dynamics of local conflict and governance through the recent civil war across South Sudan, using five ‘case study’ locations: Gogrial, Malakal, Leer, Nimule, and Abyei. Evident through this research was that, while public authority – both formal and informal – and political marketplace dynamics, varied considerably across the five research sites, a number of important commonalities also emerged in some or all locations, regarding their evolving roles through the conflict(s) and…
This research project was commissioned in response to a growing concern among civil society, faith-based organisations, affected communities, and refugees about the negative impact of logging on local communities in South Sudan, particularly in the Equatorian Region and Greater Bahr El Ghazal. It was envisaged that through the initial research and deeper understanding of the issues involved, opportunities for engagement would be identified to inform strategic programming in a subsequent phase. This document therefore is…
This policy brief argues that chiefs play an important role in governance and community life in South Sudan. They provide an array of vital services, from mobilising people for community projects to adjudicating disputes and administering customary law. Sometimes criticised as being an unelected group of old men, they will nevertheless play a vital role in South Sudan’s steps to building viable, effective, local government institutions. This policy brief looks at chiefs and suggests that…
The findings presented in this report from 2010 are the result of an assessment that was conducted by an independent consultant on two DGTTF (Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund) funded projects in Southern Sudan in 2005 and 2008. The projects were part of UNDP’s broad efforts to support the development of decentralized democratic governance through the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in January 2005.
The Local Government Act
This study sketches the social and political situation of traditional authorities in Southern Sudan and evaluateds the role envisaged from them within the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan.
This article explores specific oral histories and chiefship debates in the aftermath of the SPLA war in two Southern Sudanese chiefdoms. It argues that these local histories reveal much about the historical relationship between state and society – and in particular the mediation with external violence – which is central to understanding the legitimacy of local authority. Link to publication
This report presents the results of a 4 week field study of the social and anthropological factors behind local governance structures in Southern Sudan – concentrating on the areas of Aweil East and Aweil Centre in Northern Bahr el Ghazal.
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