This report provides an analysis of gender dynamics in community social protection in Northern Bahr El Ghazal (NBG), South Sudan. The analysis is based on field research and a review of desk literature conducted in March 2025. Semi-structured key informant interviews and focus group discussions were conducted in NBG and Juba with a total of 38 respondents (9 men and 29 women) respondents included individuals aged between 18 and 80 years, and from diverse social…
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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.
As donor aid is shrinking, the importance of social protection is growing, with more focus on how the most vulnerable members of communities can survive. The purpose of this research is to analyse how humanitarian aid-based social protection interacts with community-based social protection, and the conflict sensitivity risks involved. The CSRF team conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) and individual key informant interviews (KIIs) with representatives of I/NGOs, community, local authority, church, traders, among others in…
KEY FINDINGS • Tong Akeen Ngor, the governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, has consolidated his grip on power by buying support, detaining members of the opposition, and ingratiating himself with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. Tensions have emerged between Tong Akeen and his patron, Vice-President Hussein Abdel Bagi. • The war in Sudan has transformed the political economy of Northern Bahr el Ghazal. Goods— including petrol destined for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—now…
ABSTRACT South Sudan has a long history of civil wars and intra-communal violence. Northern Bahr el-Ghazal (NBeG) state, including Aweil East County, similarly to other pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities, stood out in terms of intra-communal violence. However, since the second civil war (1983–2005), larger-scale local-level violence has substantially reduced and conflicts are settled in different dispute resolution forums. This paper explores factors reducing intra-communal violence in Aweil East. It demonstrates that the Sudan People’s Liberation…
The devastating war in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has also had a profound impact on the country’s neighbours, particularly South Sudan. This is especially the case for areas that border Sudan, including Upper Nile, the Ruweng Administrative Area, and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal (NBG). RVI has been working in NBG under the XCEPT programme since 2018, producing a body of work on the borderland economy and systems of…
The report “War, Migration and Work” examines the history of labour migration and labour relations in present day South Sudan’s Baher El-Ghazal borderlands with Darfur and Kordofan (regions of present day Sudan). Beginning in the nineteenth century, the report charts the evolution of the labour system from slavery to present-day forms of wage-labour, based on cash and debt. The report views this change in the context of the region’s long history of conflict, including the…
International humanitarian actors and academics continue to struggle to understand armed group conduct and how to restrain this conduct when it violates moral, legal and humanitarian norms. Armed groups that lack a visible, explicit formal hierarchical command structure, equivalent to those found in state militaries, have proved a particular puzzle. A growing body of scholarship on the strategic functions of patterns of violence and restraint has usefully moved beyond assumptions that extreme violence is indicative…
This brief provides a context update about the current situation in Northern Bahr el Ghazal –a county in northern South Sudan. The authors present safety and security challenges identified by communities, authorities and civil society such as food insecurity, gender-based violence, land and border disputes, weak justice systems and a lack of security services to turn to. They also provide recommendations for how best to address these challenges for all levels of government and communities to consider. Download
Key points • Since Salva Kiir appointed Hussein Abdel Abgi as one of his five vice-presidents he has strengthened his control over the borderland region between South Sudan and Sudan, now occupying political space previously filled by Paul Malong (former SPLA Chief of Staff). • Abdel Bagi has deepened his control of the re-formed Northern Bahr el-Ghazal by successfully negotiating the appointment of Tong Aken Ngor (former governor of Aweil state), who operates under his…
Breaking Out of the Borderlands is the second report by Dr Nicki Kindersley and Joseph Diing Majok on South Sudan’s changing borderland economy. The first report in the series—Monetized Livelihoods and militarized Labour in South Sudan’s Borderlands—described the protracted state of social and economic crisis that has gripped the borderland region of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal. Breaking Out of the Borderlands takes the phenomena described in the authors’ earlier work—the monetization of land, life and work…
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