This article investigates contestations over the roles and legitimacy of gangs within the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Protection of Civilians (PoC) site in Bentiu, South Sudan. Drawing on qualitative interviews, it argues that ‘gangs’ represented the medium through which everyday struggles and processes of social contestations were negotiated between youth, elders, and protection actors. Prevailing narratives of gangs as violent criminal entities structured conflict with elders and protection actors, but to their…
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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 report explores how Protection of Civilian (PoC) site residents guarantee their own safety and protection, following the handing over of the POC in Juba by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan’s (UNMISS) to the Revitalised-Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU). Read here
On January 25, 2023, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report organized a workshop to discuss the mandate and political strategy of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). This discussion was part of a series of workshops that examine how the activities included in peace operations’ mandates can be better prioritized, sequenced, and grounded in a political strategy. This is the fifth consecutive year in which these partners…
Two years after the formation of a transitional unity government that includes South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, his long-time rival Riek Machar, and other opposition leaders, the context in South Sudan is dire. Progress in the implementation of the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement─which sought to end a brutal five-year civil war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths─remains limited. South Sudanese civilians face continued human rights abuses by state and non-state actors,…
This article explores the unintended consequences associated with the protection of civilians (PoC) mandate in United Nations peacekeeping. Drawing primarily on two case studies – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and South Sudan (UNMISS) – we advance three lines of argument. First, the gravitational pull of PoC can distract missions from other, often interdependent, priorities. Second, the implementation of PoC can distort intended impacts. Third, these distractions and distortions can combine to produce…
The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in March 2021. In this context, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report organized a virtual workshop on February 10, 2021, to discuss UNMISS’s mandate and political strategy. Similar workshops were held in February 2019 and 2020 in advance of the Security Council’s previous renewals of UNMISS’s mandate. This workshop offered…
Abstract Peacebuilding is less likely to succeed without the participation and consideration of women. In the last two decades, peace operations deployed on the African continent under the banner of the United Nations and the African Union have included mandates focused on strengthening women’s participation in peace processes, ensuring the protection of women and girls, and integrating gender considerations into the approach of missions at building sustainable peace. This chapter examines the approaches undertaken in…
On the 4 September 2020, the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) in South Sudan announced in a press conference that UNMISS had begun to ‘progressively withdraw its troops and police from the Bor and Wau PoCs’, and to redesignate the sites ‘no longer PoC sites but camps for internally displaced people (IDP) under the jurisdiction of the government’ (UNMISS 4 September 2020). Later on in September UNMISS also removed its troops and police…
This paper outlines the United Nations’ integrated response to complex humanitarian emergencies and the different types of interactions that may occur between militaries and civilian organisations involved in them. It uses a recent UK deployment to South Sudan as an example, drawing on the experience to highlight areas of particular interest to healthcare workers. It identifies several domains that should usefully be developed for both civilians and military personnel in these environments—including sharing our expertise…
The protection of civilians (PoC) mandate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), was established in 2011, coinciding with the country’s independence. Since then, the public discourse on UNMISS has called into question the capacity of the mission to fully meet the expectations created by this mandate in practice. In this chapter the authors explore this issue by investigating the following questions: 1) how can the discrepancy between UNMISS and its mandate be…
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