South Sudan’s leaders signed a renewed peace agreement in September 2018. In this policy brief, the authors assess the implementation progress on the agreed reforms through the first six months. They find modest, but stalled, progress on some reforms. Critical provisions such as the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program have not been initiated. Compared to the 2015 agreement, more progress has been made in the first six months of the 2018 agreement, however, South…
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One inescapable question in the minds of many South Sudanese is what the change of guard in the Sudan represents in terms of its relationship with South Sudan. Another question pertains to the impact Al Bashir’s departure has on the Peace Agreement he helped the South Sudanese belligerents signed in September last year. This paper seeks to answer these questions in order to provide a concise view on the political dynamics in Sudan as seen…
Five years into South Sudan’s civil war, the main belligerents have once again agreed to stop fighting and form a unity government. But the set of agreements, finalised on 12 September 2018, two years after the last accord collapsed, does not end the country’s deep crisis. It neither resolves the power struggle between President Salva Kiir and erstwhile rebel leader Riek Machar nor outlines a final political settlement for the country. Rather, it establishes a…
Hundreds of thousands killed, injured, and raped. Millions more displaced. After five years of violence in South Sudan, the peace agreement signed in September 2018 is a hopeful attempt to end the corruption-fueled war. But this is an uncertain time in South Sudan. The overall commitment to the peace agreement is low and implementation of some key provisions of the agreement has stalled completely. At the same time, President Salva Kiir continues to control South…
South Sudan was born amid great hope for a country that boasted vast natural wealth. Inheriting a virtually lunar political and economic landscape, this hope quickly gave way under kleptocratic governance and corruption, a volatile political environment with recent horrendous violence, and the ensuing loss of oil revenues and cuts in foreign investment and aid. These current crises were based on a historical lack of effective and legitimate power: South Sudan, in reality, has historically…
In September 2018 the warring parties in South Sudan signed the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). The R-ARCSS will be implemented in a daunting environment – over the course of the five-year conflict, political and security arenas have grown increasingly fractured. For the agreement to succeed, political and military leaders must convince the population of South Sudan and the broader international community that they are…
Many analysts and observers of politics in South Sudan point to weak governance as the malefactor for the political crises and lack of progress on socioeconomic development in the country. This policy brief, therefore, identifies major governance challenges in South Sudan and assesses whether the recently signed R-ARCSS addresses them. Among key governance challenges is lack of strategic direction, that is, no vision to rally the people around and without this, the country has difficulty…
South Sudan is one of the world’s most divided and unstable countries. Since achieving statehood in 2011, the country has plunged into civil war (2013-15) and become the scene of some of the worst human rights abuses on the African continent. Despite ongoing political turmoil, states and international institutions have pledged enormous resources to stabilize the country and shore up the current peace process, but have had limited influence in dealing with the effects of…
This chapter highlights practices in the wider peacebuilding field that seek similar outcomes as UN peace operations or otherwise affect the background conditions necessary for their success. It treats South Sudan as an illustrative case study that uniquely reflects processes that shape and regulate sites of conflict, chronic emergency, and limited statehood across postcolonial sub-Saharan states. The author argues that, despite the ‘view from above’, South Sudan’s independence ultimately depended on two interconnected peacebuilding frameworks:…
After several months of political and diplomatic shuttling by mediators, South Sudan finally has a peace deal. Broadly, the new agreement recognises the evolution of the conflict and no longer considers the civil war as binary duel between the two protagonists but rather as involving many actors. It also accepts that Uganda and Sudan, the closest allies to the various conflict parties, play an instrumental role in realising a lasting and sustainable peace agreement. The…
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