In Warrap state, home to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and much of the country’s political and military elite, many hoped that the signing of a peace agreement in 2018 would bring an end to the violence that had scarred their country for the previous five years. Instead, in Warrap, violence intensified, and pitted communities against each other in increasingly brutal tit-for-tat attacks that targeted women, children, homes, and the very capacities of communities to…

Only two years after South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, the power struggle between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar resulted in an atrocious civil war. In 2015, the signing of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS), which was brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), led to a temporary pause in the fighting, but it was reignited within a few months….

This report on the status of implementation of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) covers the period from 1 January to 31 March 2022. It is to be noted that with just over two years since the formation of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), progress made towards implementation of the R-ARCSS, remains relatively slow. During the first quarter of 2022 the most…

The recent flooding in South Sudan is the worst in over 60 years. South Sudan is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including droughts and flooding. Both long-term climate change, such as the gradual increase in temperatures, and short-term extreme climate events, like increased flooding, have indirect and interlinked implications for peace and security in South Sudan. This fact sheet bundles key information on climate change impacts in South Sudan and the interrelations…

This article critiques the prescription of joint security units called for by civil war peace agreements as a means to integrate armed forces previously in conflict. Drawing on cases from Sudan, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, this article offers a comparative assessment of the joint security units attempted in each country. As negotiators and mediators often employ templates from other contexts, the deficits exemplified by these cases call for rethinking the practice of…

This report provides a coherent account of the historical, legal and practical realities of land, reparations and transitional justice in South Sudan. The first section describes the methodology and the demographic distribution of the respondents. A detailed statistical account of the respondents is provided in a table format. The nexus between land, reparations and transitional justice is then described, helping the reader to make sense of the interrelationship between the three areas. The second section…

Abstract South Sudan’s latest peace deal has been lauded as a milestone in the country’s long road to peace and stability. The Revitalised Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) outlines power-sharing arrangements between rivals President Salva Kiir and main rebel/opposition leader Riek Machar, and provides a blueprint for a sustainable peace and democratic transition. Despite this welcome development, South Sudan’s revitalised peace process has been marred by delays, uncertainty, divisions and…

In this selection of articles on the Future and Implementation of the R-ARCSS in South Sudan scholars/experts including Christopher Zambakari, Remember Miamingi, Peter Adwok Nyaba and Jok Madut Jok explore the R-ARCSS and its implementation by focusing on different issues such as the delays in the implementation of the agreement, the security sector reform, and the number of states. Download    

There is a regular echo of consensus that South Sudan’s agenda for reconciliation needs to be indigenous to the country and based on the particularity of the experience here. Yet, there is no digestable synthesis of the lessons learned or reflection among key actors as to how lessons from the earlier national-level processes could be integrated into the structures foreshadowed in the R- ARCISS. The Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund is pursuing elsewhere in its programme of…

The 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) calls for the integration of combatants from South Sudan’s three key warring parties into a new ‘unified’ army. The process, however, has led to new sources of insecurity. This Briefing Paper explores the ways in which the R-ARCSS risks producing a national military structure that is potentially both too large and too fractious to be a viable vehicle…

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