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This CSRF report focuses on the return and reintegration resulting from the current influx of returnees and refugees from Sudan and other neighbouring countries. Specifically, the report explores the risks associated with return and reintegration as well as opportunities for conflict sensitive reintegration and durable solutions initiatives. To inform the current approaches to returns and reintegration, the report highlights key lessons from past returns and reintegration experiences in South (ern) Sudan.

Women in South Sudan are subject to limited access to political, economic, social resources due to the country’s rigid patriarchal structure. Nevertheless, women have been negotiating their agency and influence for decades, playing a crucial role in state-building, peacebuilding, and development processes. Beyond their formal role as agents of peace, considering the informal dimensions through which South Sudanese women influence peace and conflict are vastly significant for aid actors to grasp conflict dynamics and the…

In recent years, there has been a notable trend among asylum seekers and refugees in Uganda, as they increasingly relocate and self-settle in urban areas. This shift towards urbanisation, particularly in Uganda’s secondary cities, has prompted a closer examination of the legal protection challenges faced by these displaced populations. This report focuses on four such secondary cities: Mbarara, Hoima, Koboko and Adjumani, each identified for their significant refugee population and strategic geographic location. Through a…

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…

This meta-analysis offers an overview of the literature on governance in South Sudan in the CSRF repository by exploring salient and timely questions for donor-funded programming. These questions focus on  the reason why local governance structures differ in South Sudan and the implications for aid actors; the relations between national, state, and local governance institutions and the implications for state building endeavours; the impacts of conflict and food security induced displacement on governance and the…

This paper aims to shed light on opportunities and challenges of the implementation of the humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP) nexus in South Sudan, and particularly investigating how localisation can be embedded in the HDP nexus in line with a decolonial perspective. This is achieved by identifying the origins of the HDP nexus in South Sudan as a top-down and largely state-centric effort, moving onto a problematisation of the localisation agenda both within UN-led implementations…

Introduction Elephants are iconic animals in South Sudan, featuring on bank notes and state flags and in many myths and sayings. ‘When the elephants fight, the grass suffers’ is one example widespread across the African continent: a popular expression about the effects that conflicts among political and military leaders have on ordinary people. The size and power of elephants has always impressed people and made them important symbols in human cultures. Known for their equally…

Abstract This chapter examines diversification into fishing by pastoral and agropastoral households and communities in Kenya and South Sudan and how and when this diversification overlaps with sedentarization. Various factors, including climatic events, conflict, privatization, development schemes, and national policies, can result in a decrease in the strategic mobility that is central to pastoral success and resilience. Diversification of economic activities may also cause households or some household members to settle, and, although limited, the…

This article discusses the cycle of violence and ways to address it in South Sudan. The article finds that the elites’ ownership of cattle is one of the main drivers of guns proliferation and cycles of violence, with the elite using cattle migration as a means for land grab. To address this elite-driven cycle of violence, the article shares some lessons from other contexts that may be helpful in addressing these challenges in South Sudan….

Severe humanitarian needs and rising violence has spurred widespread displacement of South Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia into South Sudan. Many of those displaced intend to remain in South Sudan and require support to reintegrate. Needs in areas of return are high, and outcomes are likely to worsen with the onset of rains, particularly for those unable to access humanitarian assistance. The report discusses the needs and motivations of those returning from Gambella region of Ethiopia…

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