This paper focuses on the political economy of charcoal production in South Sudan, with the focus on its value chain. The paper identified a wide range of actors who dominate the political economy of charcoal, including producers, transporters, the public and defense sector financiers, landlords, brokers and security providers. The report highlights the current debate over the value, commodification and sale of forests, and it provides nuance understanding of the political economy of charcoal making…
Entries by Nicki Kindersley
South Sudan and Sudan’s borderlands are run by a patchwork of armed authorities. This report reflects on the Sudan-South Sudan borderland economic systems to understand the impact of disrupted oil income on state stability. The research found that economic system and public authorities in the borderlands are relatively stable within their zones of control. However, issues of water, flooding and pollution, alongside the resulting resettlement aimed at accessing market incomes have deeply affected the population,…
Produced by Rift Valley Institute, this report focuses on the long-awaited democratic election in South Sudan. The report finds that there is little incentive to organise democratic election in the country due to several reasons, including limited election investment in the election process as well as the entrenchment of rent extraction among armed actors, and a generalised lack of political will. The report provides some practical steps for organising democratic elections, such as providing safety…
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…
As South Sudan moves towards forming a Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGONU) in February 2020, questions around the return and resettlement of over 4.15 million South Sudanese are rising up the political agenda. There is an urgent need to consider lessons from the previous return migration and resettlement processes, and controls on returnees’ movements, particularly from those around the CPA period (2002-2012). This briefing note is part of this process, reflecting on the…
This longitudinal study explores the place of the civilian populations in the wars of what is now South Sudan. Using a broad range of empirical evidence, the authors trace the evolution of conflict practices and norms from the 1800s to today. Two main insights stand out: First, since the initial colonial incursions, local residents have been strategic assets to be managed and exploited, and thus populations are not just legitimate targets in conflicts but also…
Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, like much of South Sudan, is in a protracted state of social and economic crisis, rooted in generations of armed conflict, forced resettlements, and a shift towards a cash and market economy. Since the 1980s, family units and livelihoods have been destroyed, displaced or reworked by conflict and most people have been forced to engage in precarious work for survival. Many residents have been drawn into patterns of labour migration to Sudan,…
This study asks: in the general absence of a functioning and effective civil administration in Juba’s huge suburbs, how have people negotiated personal disputes and neighbourhood management since conflict began in 2013? Who arbitrates in Juba, and on what terms? This study challenges top-down analyses that see political-military elites managing their ethnic enclaves of followers and fighters through nepotism and gifts. Such patronage requires the complex negotiation of responsibilities and rights, including over community safety…
South Sudan’s civil war has spread across the country, fuelling economic collapse and food shortages, and sending millions of residents fleeing across its borders. Although the former Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State has escaped the worst excesses of the current conflict—in part because it is a supposed heartland of South Sudan’s ruling politicalmilitary elites—it is also deeply affected by, and embedded in, the current war. Politics, power and chiefship in famine and war investigates how customary…
This article reviews five recently published books on the history of South Sudan and the Sudan. Nicki Kindersley identifies common aims of the books including: to bind the Sudans into their geographical and intellectual context; to illuminate histories previously hidden by a common but limited research focus on Sudans’ states and wars; and to reexamine methods and sources, particularly in the search for histories beyond elites and central state politics. Nicki Kindersley reviewed the following…