South Sudan is at a crossroads in its recovery, reconstruction, and development. With weak institutions and recurring cycles of violence, South Sudan remains caught in a web of fragility and economic stagnation a decade after independence. This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) discusses South Sudan’s economic performance since independence, highlighting the need for the country to leverage its natural capital in the agriculture and oil sectors to support recovery and resilience. Economic recovery has stalled in…
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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.
Charcoal is increasingly becoming a primary energy choice, accounting for 96% of cooking fuel for the growing urban population of South Sudan (NBS, 2012; Tiitmamer & Anai, 2018). Yet not much is known about the level of government regulation to make the woodfuel, especially the charcoal sector, sustainable. Using individual interviews and focus group discussions with charcoal producers, transporters, traders, soldiers and communities, this Brief identifies the following issues, and which demand the government’s urgent…
Drawing on the literature on the temporalities of infrastructure, this article focuses on the cyclical assertion of centralized authority through road-building in South Sudan, where roads are repeatedly built, projects paused, roads ruined, and then rebuilt again. The landscapes of South Sudan are littered with the decaying infrastructure projects of previous governments and political visions, seemingly pointing to a past of failed futures and the limits of government power. At the same time, the recurrent…
Although fraught with numerous implementation issues, the Revitalized Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict (RARCSS) has been credited with bringing relative stability to South Sudan since 20181. The Agreement mandated the creation of a Unity Government, setting the stage for the Transitional Period, which is due to end in 2023. The moment of truth for this peace agreement is the holding of elections proscribed for the end of the Transitional Period. Although the elections mandated…
In February 2022, South Sudan’s transitional unity government will be two years old, with just one year remaining to achieve the goals set out in the 2018 ‘revitalised’ peace agreement. Although a fragile ceasefire is largely holding and some progress has been made towards implementing the agreement, most of its tasks remain undone. Download
There is still much to be understood about South Sudan’s dynamic context. However, there is a wealth of existing research, knowledge, experience, and ongoing discussions around localisation in South Sudan. It is critical that the aid sector continues to prioritise spaces for deep reflection and open dialogue around what ‘localisation’ means in South Sudan, the obstacles, and opportunities it presents, and how to translate localisation commitments into good practice. While localisation does not automatically lead…
This report presents the results from a survey of the political economy of checkpoints along the major trade routes in South Sudan. Between April 2019 and April 2021, enumerators made 13 journeys along major overland and river routes and collected detailed information on the number and location of checkpoints, who operates them, who pays, and how much. The study’s lead authors also conducted interviews with, and consulted data provided by, a variety of stakeholders in…
This paper provides an overview of land governance as it relates to problems of conflict and displacement in South Sudan. The goal is to help aid actors better understand the context in which they are operating and how they might limit the potential for unintended consequences from their interventions and maximise the contribution that they make to social cohesion and conflict transformation. The study focused on three subnational locations – Bor, Wau and Yambio –…
This memo summarises research on security and justice from CRP’s five sites – DRC, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria – plus additional research on Sudan. Findings suggests that standard strategies for security and justice reform are routinely undermined by the dynamics of conflict. Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) policies often end up providing a mechanism through which different factions engaged in conflict can compete for funding, status, and participation…
This paper examines how land governance – or the rules, processes, and structures through which decisions are made about access to land and its use, the manner in which the decisions are implemented and enforced, and the way that competing interests in land are managed – has interacted with the conflict in South Sudan. A theme running through the paper is that control over decisions relating to land, as much as control over the land…
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