Promoting peace and transition in South Sudan

Project description

Title: Flexible Support to the Peace and Transition Process in South Sudan 
Commissioned by: German Federal Foreign Office 
Country: South Sudan
Overall term: 2020 to 2022

Context

South Sudan has been independent of Sudan since 2011. Two years later, armed conflict broke out between supporters of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and supporters of Vice-President Riek Machar. In 2015, both parties signed the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS), but fighting broke out again in July 2016.

A new ceasefire was reached and the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) concluded only in 2018. In February 2020, a transitional Government of National Accord was formed. This introduced a three-year transition phase, which is intended to culminate in a new constitution and democratic elections.

However, the situation remains unstable. The ceasefire agreement is holding at the national level, but there are repeated outbreaks of violence in individual regions. Sexual and gender-based violence are widespread.

Uniting disparate armed groups to form a coherent security system is an important stage in the transition phase but is particularly challenging in political terms. Because of the institutional weakness of the police and the historical dominance of the military, the police currently play a minor role in citizens’ safety. The objective is to change this by reforming the security sector.

Objective

Relevant actors have the necessary implementation and advisory skills to support the reform of South Sudan’s police in the peace and transition process.

Approach

Specialist support for civil society actors in the field of police reform 
The project encourages NGOs and academic influencers to contribute their perspectives to the debate around security reform.

The project also helps collect data to improve the information available about the police and citizens’ security needs through needs analyses. Reliable information on the organisational structure, skills and needs of the police, for example regarding the number, deployment location and training of police officers, is currently unavailable. Knowledge about the specific security concerns of the population is also lacking. The objective is also to strengthen the rights of women and girls, who are particularly often victims of violence.

Existing reform processes in South Sudan’s police are assessed through these analyses.

Promoting women within the South Sudan police, strengthening the police force in the area of recognising and preventing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and taking gender-sensitive issues into consideration are key components of the advisory services.

Establishing a fast and flexible fund to support microprojects 
The project is creating a fund to finance microprojects. It will support projects that help achieve the project’s objectives. Local peace and reconciliation initiatives regarding police reform are one focal point. Intercommunity, interethnic and interreligious dialogue events as well as needs analyses and studies can also be financed through the fund.

Consideration of the needs of women and girls is an important project selection criterion. The fund also follows the ‘do no harm’ approach to conflict-sensitive planning and implementation of projects. The results and experiences from the financed microprojects are fed into the project’s advisory activities.

Last update: March 2021