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Climate change poses global risks (World Economic Forum, 2016, IPCC, 2014). These risks adversely affect women in developing countries because of their little capacity to adapt (Brody et al, 2008). Previous studies show that women are more vulnerable to climate change than men for a variety of reasons, including illiteracy, low socioeconomic skills, inadequate access to assets, and social isolation, among others (Ahmad and Fajber, 2009; Archer 2003; UNISDR, 2008; Neumayer and Plumper, 2007). Thus,…

This article uses Arend Lijphart’s notion of ‘power-sharing consociationalism’ to understand the mutually reinforcing conflict system and the barriers to resolving such conflicts in South Sudan. ‘Consociationalism’ has been affirmed as an ideal approach for resolving conflicts in ethnically divided societies, but in South Sudan, the formal institutions of power sharing have not delivered sustainable peace. Analysis in this article reveals that the implementation of the various ‘peace agreements’ and ‘deals’ deviated from classical ‘consociationalism’….

This report outlines findings from an endline study conducted in September 2017, to explore what change, if any, had occurred in how women and girls participate in the camp life and camp governance and how they relate to their perceptions of safety, as a result of these pilot strategies. At the time of the endline study, Bentiu PoC site hosted 115,020 IDPs (20,067 households), of whom females made up 50 percent and children under 5…

Soon after South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, its political landscape grew increasingly volatile. It became almost impossible for international and regional actors to address one crisis before another more serious one erupted. This article combines cultural, political, economic and social factors into a comprehensive framework to explain the role of the political elites in transforming fear and politicized anger into violent and deadly conflicts. The theoretical framework of the security dilemma model is applied…

This essay contributes to the comparative ethnography of play by reporting on children’s descriptions of play in Bor, South Sudan. By situating play within the socio-political and economic structures that organize Bor Town society it describes children’s everyday lives, critical imaginations, and experiences in a place where playfulness has been neglected by a focus on armed violence. By attending to the playful side of children’s lives in Bor, this essay does not set out to…

The proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) is one of the most pervasive problems facing South Sudan. This briefing explores Saferworld’s work to identify and improve community-based solutions. In April 2017, with support from United Nations Mines Action Service (UNMAS), Saferworld launched a project to identify and improve community-based solutions to the threats posed by the proliferation and misuse of SALW. With their partners Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO) and…

Inequality is a major determinant of access to food in Sudan, with power, wealth and services concentrated within a central Sudan elite, leaving much of the country marginalized, impoverished and suffering repeated emergencies. This article discusses how food aid both contributed to the state’s exclusionary development process and tried but failed to assist crisis-affected populations in its peripheries. In the 1950s, food aid explicitly aimed to support the state but from the late 1980s, emergency…

Mass population displacements put additional stress on the ecosystems and often lead to conflicts with the host communities, especially in the case of large refugee or Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. Therefore, there is need for the assessment of environmental impacts and, based on this, the sustainable management of natural resources between host and refugee communities. We propose a method based on high (Landsat 5,7 and 8) and very high (WorldView-2) resolution Earth Observation data…

As part of HelpAge International’s project on advancing the rights and protection of conflict-affected older South Sudanese migrants in Ethiopia, Uganda and South Sudan, HelpAge commissioned the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) to conduct a study on older South Sudanese displaced by conflict, both within South Sudan and across the border in Uganda and Ethiopia. This study takes stock of the progress made and remaining challenges faced by those responding to forced displacement, both in addressing…

Could the civil war in South Sudan have been prevented? Could some of the violence and misery caused by the war have been avoided? Those questions are academic in some ways, as so much damage has been done. But in other ways, seeking answers is vital because patterns of violence in the 21st century suggest there will be more wars that resemble the South Sudan conflict: (a) fought within a country’s borders, (b) fought between…

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