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 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…

This article draws on empirical data collected in Yei River County, South Sudan, to contribute to debates on hybrid governance in Africa. Current literature offers a limited understanding of the practical workings of hybridity, and particularly of whether and under what circumstances hybridity may meet the interests and solve the problems of citizens. This article discusses how subsequent historical attempts at state-building have left a complex and layered governance system and analyses how this system…

This report provides a coherent account of the historical, legal and practical realities of land, reparations and transitional justice in South Sudan. The first section describes the methodology and the demographic distribution of the respondents. A detailed statistical account of the respondents is provided in a table format. The nexus between land, reparations and transitional justice is then described, helping the reader to make sense of the interrelationship between the three areas. The second section…

This report is part of the Oakland Institute’s (OI) seven-country case study project to document and examine land investment deals in Africa (Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zambia) in order to determine social, economic, and environmental implications of land acquisitions in the developing world. This report is the product of research undertaken by OI between June and October 2011. The research team conducted thorough examination of the actual agreements and the extent…

This paper challenges the prevailing focus on ethnic division and conflict in Southern Sudan in recent years, demonstrating that even within ethnically divisive debates over land, there are shared, transethnic levels of moral concern. These concerns centre on the commodification and monetisation of rural and kinship resources, including human life itself, epitomised in ideas of land being bought with blood, or blood being turned into money by the recent wartime economy. It argues that the…

This article (2005) explores local government structure and practices in SPLM/A held areas in Southern Sudan. Doing this it refers to the challenges of distributing land and foreign aid. The article focusses on the Equatoria region and on ethnic politics in Central Equatoria during the past civil war. Link to publication

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