This report discusses community engagement with armed actors, and identifies factors, actions, and actors can influence such engagement. The report finds that community engagement with armed actors presents both opportunities and challenges. Finally, the report provides suggestions on how national, and international peace, protection and humanitarian actors can effectively engage with armed actors through enhancing complementarity between humanitarian, especially protection, and peacebuilding actors. Read more here

This report focuses on the protection needs and risks faced by returnees and host communities in South Sudan. The needs of the 7,457 Sudanese refugees (and almost 4000 others nonSudanese or South Sudanese nationality) who have so far arrived in South Sudan remain critical. Though many of the needs of and risks faced by these populations are similar, it is critical to also consider the specific challenges and vulnerabilities experienced by South Sudanese nationals (both…

There are numerous issues that continue to undermine the full realisation of HLP rights for the people of South Sudan and HLP is recognized as a growing key protection concern across the country. The HLP Technical Working Group (HLP TWG) strives to ensure the integration of HLP rights and concerns in humanitarian responses, and to ensure that key affected populations are supported. This note summarizes the key HLP challenges in South Sudan and provides recommendations…

Recognising the value of localisation and building on the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) commitments, the Global Protection Cluster (GPC) and its four Areas of Responsibilities (AoRs) are seeking to meet the commitments made with regards to localisation and ensure that protection response strategies and coordination mechanisms are guided by the principle – “as local as possible, as international as necessary.” The GPC Localisation of Protection initiative is therefore an approach that supports, when appropriate, local…

The principle of the Protection of Civilians (PoC) in armed conflict has ethical repercussions in various actions undertaken by states and international organisations, from humanitarian relief, development aid, and peacekeeping, to warfare and military intervention. While the ethics of humanitarian intervention are instructive in this regard, most PoC practices should be conceived rather as modes of humanitarian governance across borders—from interventionist to resilience‐oriented kinds. The consequences of this for the ethics of PoC are explored…

Five times more children than fighters are being killed in conflicts, new Save the Children report reveals At least 550,000 babies are thought to have died as a result of armed conflict between 2013 and 2017 in the 10 worst-affected countries, according to new analysis by Save the Children — an average of well over 100,000 every year. DR Congo and South Sudan – where most of the nearly 1.2 million refugees in Uganda come…

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was established in 2011. As violence erupted in 2013, the peacekeeping mission allowed tens of thousands of civilians into its bases, leading to the establishment of Protection of Civilians (POC) sites that today shelter more than 200,000 people. The argument of this article is that the creation of the POC sites became constitutive of a broader set of controversies surrounding the building or otherwise of resilience among…

This article traces the origins, development and implications of Human Rights Up Front (HRuF), a bold and visionary initiative launched by former Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in 2013. While HRuF is part of a broader continuum of human rights-related reforms, its scope and focus is distinctive. HRuF puts the imperative to protect people from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law at the core of the UN’s strategy and operational activities, and obliges staff…

The creation of ‘friendly spaces’ for women and girls has been a key strategy in the protection and empowerment of women and girls in South-Sudan since conflict re-erupted in the country in December 2013. This document provides guidance on the aims of these spaces, and how they can best be established and managed in the South Sudan context. The methodology for drawing the guidelines consisted of a desk review of reports and guidance from other…

Following recent cases of abductions and extraditions in East Africa, a new policy paper by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) seeks to clarify the key legal obligations of countries hosting foreign political opponents and opposition figures, and to urge governments to respect these obligations. Across East Africa the protection of politically active or politically sensitive exiles is repeatedly compromised for political reasons and in violation of international law, as host governments fail to prevent,…

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