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The effects of climate change are expected to be greatest in the Horn of Africa countries, particularly those, such as South Sudan, whose populations are reliant on rain-fed agricultural production to meet their food and income needs. As one of the least developed countries in the world, South Sudan’s population is dependent on climate sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods, making the country particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. South Sudan’s future economy…

This Briefing Paper examines how UN peace operations are using casualty data to enhance the implementation of key elements of their mandates, including the protection of civilians (PoC), the promotion and protection of human rights, and conflict prevention, thereby contributing to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.1: ‘Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related deaths rates everywhere’. It argues that, in the absence of data from state institutions, UN peace operations can be…

This briefing provides information about members of the new Cabinet in South Sudan. The Mapping Actors and Alliances Project in South Sudan (MAAPSS) provides current information on over 400 actors, and charts connections among political and military alliances and armed groups. Download    

The Horn of Africa including South Sudan has been facing a wide range of interconnected and mutually reinforcing negative conditions for many years. Recently, climate change-induced migration, either voluntary in nature as an adaptation strategy or through displacement, has become a formidable challenge for these countries. Achieving a resilient society – where people can adapt in place and thrive, or migrate with dignity to areas of higher opportunity – should be an important part of…

The ability to predict and analyze famine has improved sharply in the past fifteen years. However, the political influences on data collection and analysis in famine and extreme food security emergencies continue to limit evidence-based prevention and response. In many emergencies, good quality data are not readily available, which makes it easy to undermine analysis processes and distort findings. In some cases, these processes are even shut down for political reasons. Sometimes governments or armed…

The current state of affairs in the country has been long in the making. Since April 2020, following a stalled formation of the Revitalized Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), there has been growing frustration in the country. Citizens had hoped that the political developments in February and March had created sufficient momentum to push the parties toward full implementation of what was clearly a grounded Peace Agreement. One of the key decisions that created this…

The move towards markets and imported foods is taking place through several, linked processes namely: the monetization of exchange; commodification of goods and labour; and new patterns of accumulation and consumption, which have led to the uprooting of people from their land and other resources needed to sustain their own production. These processes, explored in Displaced Tastes, have had a profound effect on what food is grown in, or imported into, the country. As a…

This rapid evidence review provides an assessment of negative and positive coping mechanisms of different groups (based on wealth (below the poverty line/elites), gender, age, (dis)abilities, geographies (rural/urban), and ethnicity of people in South Sudan in relation to different types of shock. It draws predominantly on a range of grey literature from multinational and bilateral institutionsas well as non-government organisations (NGOs) and think tanks. The report highlights that coping strategies are varied and multifaceted, they…

In this piece, Deng Kuol explains the significance of grains for his pastoralist Ngok Dinka community—more commonly associated with cattle—in the borderland region of Abyei. To illustrate this, Deng describes the efforts made by his mother to preserve access to a socially valued variety of sorghum—ruath—by travelling into military occupied areas of Abyei while her family was displaced outside their home areas. The story illustrates how, for the Dinka community in South Sudan, grains are…

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. In this piece, Luga Aquila explores the history of cassava among the Pojulu in Central Equatoria. He explains how one…

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