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Do roads literally lead to peace? While seemingly a strange question to ask, today’s peacebuilders certainly seem to think so. After decades of focus on questions of governance, today, instead, infrastructure primes in state- and peacebuilding missions in many fragile and conflict-affected societies. Peacebuilding efforts in places ranging from Somalia to Afghanistan to the Congo are, to a considerable extent, interventions in the built environment. While infrastructure has always been around in post-conflict reconstruction, today,…

This briefing  critically reflects on the ongoing peacebuilding efforts in South Sudan and suggests to adequately considering the complexity of the conflict dynamics and to taking local peace building actors into account. Download  

This report argues that a systemwide donor-driven transition to renewable energy—and specifically solar power—to support humanitarian programming is a viable way forward both now and over the longer term. Although such a transition alone will not end the conflict, it offers donors a more strategic alternative to the current practice. In the near term, a pivot to renewable energy will offer significant cost savings in a nation where electricity generation is one of the highest…

Land reform has been depicted by some as an effective element of counterinsurgency strategy in nations experiencing peasant-based civil conflict. While some studies have argued that land reform reduces civilian support for insurgency, other research has demonstrated that these reforms are often undermined by brutal state repression. The study of land reform has also been driven largely by qualitative case study research, which has limited what we know about the cross-national efficacy of these reforms….

This tool helps to ensure that in planning or carrying out any project, we are being sensitive to the conflict context at all times. It provides a list of questions for a community to consider as they plan and carry out a project. The questions help a group to think through the intended and unintended impacts that a project might have on a conflict. Download

This position paper seeks to provide a roadmap to help South Sudan political leaders and citizens engage in dialogue at multiple levels, while urging the regional and international communities to put pressure on the conflicting parties to end this senseless war. The principle approach, as set out in Rwanda in 2015, is the South Sudan Council of Churches’ Action Plan for Peace (APP).

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…

The report “Monitoring the Scenarios for South Sudan in 2020: Peace the only thing worth pursuing” updates developments in South Sudan based on a 2016 analysis of five possible scenarios for the country. Written by a group of concerned citizens in South Sudan the report warns that the situation in the country is likely to become even worse unless a genuine, inclusive political process can be started immediately. Download

After the independence of South Sudan from Sudan on 9 July 2011, the Japanese government decided to dispatch its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to South Sudan under the auspices of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). Despite the post-conflict military clashes in South Sudan, the Japanese government did not withdraw the SDF, but instead, the Abe administration assigned a new mission, the so-called ‘kaketsuke-keigo’ (‘rush and rescue’), to rescue staff of…

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