This briefing paper is based on research conducted by the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility (CSRF) in February and March 2018, and funded by the UK, Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands. The full report can be found on the CSRF Research Repository. Cash-based programmes are changing the way aid works in South Sudan. Conditional and unconditional cash transfers, grants, vouchers and work schemes are reworking shelter, food security and livelihoods, and development programmes – and they…

South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, the Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet), has been captured by predatory elites at the heart of the country’s brutal civil war. The company is almost entirely unregulated and has fallen under the direct control of the President and his inner circle, including the head of South Sudan’s oppressive Internal Security Bureau, who sits on Nilepet’s Board. This combination of capture and secrecy has allowed it to funnel millions in oil revenues…

Spoilers on the battlefield and in the negotiations process have completely undermined the search for peace in South Sudan. After numerous threats from the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the lack of any meaningful and escalating consequences for significant cease-fire violations and obstruction has emboldened spoilers on all sides and led to a spiraling of the conflict. The recently signed Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) agreement offers no respite, as it was…

This briefing note explores the interaction between gender norms of masculinities and femininities, and capacities for peace and conflict in areas that are receiving assistance. The aim of the research on which this publication is based on is to better understand how gender norms, including violent notions of masculinity and gender inequality in Greater Lakes State and Western Equatoria State may be affecting: the scale and the nature of conflict and violence; the roles played…

Following South Sudanese independence in 2011, land reform became a major aspect of state building, partly to address historical injustices and partly to avoid future conflicts around land. In the process, land became a trigger for conflicts, sometimes between communities with no histories of “ethnic conflict.” Drawing on cases in two rural areas in Yei River County in South Sudan, this paper shows that contradictions in the existing legal frameworks on land are mainly to…

This article considers the intractable conflicts and human rights situations in Darfur, Sudan and South Sudan, respectively, against the international responses they elicited. Intractable conflicts are conflicts that have lasted for a long time with resistance to settlement despite various attempts at intervention and conciliation. These conflicts from neighbouring nations have both elicited extensive engagement from the international and regional communities but, while some clarity regarding the direction to be taken has been achieved in…

After decades of civil war, the people of southern Sudan voted to secede from the north in an attempt to escape the seemingly endless violence. On declaring independence, South Sudan was one of the least developed places on earth, but with the ability to draw upon significant oil reserves worth $150 million a month, the foundation for a successful future was firmly in place. How, then, did the state of the new nation deteriorate even…

This report explores the interaction between gender norms of masculinities and femininities, and capacities for peace and conflict in areas that are receiving assistance. The aim of the research is to better understand how gender norms, including violent notions of masculinity and gender inequality in Greater Lakes State and Western Equatoria State may be affecting: the scale and the nature of conflict and violence; the roles played by men, women, boys and girls in fuelling…

This briefing paper recommends a rethink in the way that aid actors approach questions of recovery and livelihood. Rather than a simplistic either/ or approach, what is needed is a much more localised and deeper analysis of conflict, inter-communal grievances and inter-communal relations.

As livestock becomes increasingly recognized for its significant contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and exports, this report investigates the practice of pastoralism in Sudan. The authors delineate migration patterns, rationales, and market strategies, and offer recommendations for policymakers and service providers interacting with communities that practice pastoralism. This study finds: Herders do not follow individual rainfall events nor do they always pursue land with the most feed available. Rather, they exploit cycles of plant growth…

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