The Missing Link: Exclusion of Bottom-up Approaches in Peacebuilding Strategies in South Sudan

A young girl helps her friend cool off by pouring water over her head in Juba, South Sudan. Photo courtesy of the United Nations via Flickr Commons. 

Since its independence from the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, Sudan and South Sudan have been engrossed in different civil wars for over half a century. During this time, the country has been a target for peace efforts by both domestic and international state and non-state actors. The signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended decades of civil conflict in the north and south regions of Sudan, and aided in South Sudan's secession. The possibility of peace in the region did not appear far-fetched. However, the outbreak of the civil war in 2013 ended the euphoria surrounding independence, and brought the peace strategies used under question.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) under the auspices of the African Union predominantly managed the mediation leading to the CPA. Their efforts focused on engaging with the political elites of the main warring parties, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Government of Sudan. Even though the CPA had a measure of local-level consultation, comprised mostly of  civil society representation from the Sudan Council of the Churches, it employed a top-down approach that involved decisions made at high political levels between government and international actors, with hopes of implementation trickling down to citizens.

Following its secession and independence, the peacebuilding attempts in South Sudan largely drew from the same top-down mechanisms used to draft the CPA. From 2011-2013, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) developed a 14 million dollar Peacebuilding Support Plan largely focused on building the state's capacity to manage conflict and bolster the rule of law through institutional strengthening and democratization. However, due to the outbreak of violence in 2013 the projects were mostly suspended before implementation. These efforts were only enough yield negative peace, or a lack of violence, for a short time period..

The Missing Link: Local Peacebuilding approaches

The outbreak of the 2013 civil conflict called for a critical review of peacebuilding approaches used, given their recent failure. Following the conflict, IGAD, the African Union, the European Union, and the Troika Group launched peace talks that resulted in President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar signing the January 2015 Arusha Agreement and the August 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS). However, these agreements remain largely unimplemented, leading to the questioning of these mainly top-down approaches.

The extent to which this high-level interaction has influenced contemporary peace is not in doubt. However, South Sudan's case iterates how the top-down approach alone is not sufficient in tackling the conflict's complexities, including ethnic violence, intra- and inter-tribal wars, revenge killings, genocide, hate speech, a refugee crisis, and a population of internally displaced people from the civil war. There is a need for a multi-level and integrated approach. The failure of South Sudanese leaders in leading the country towards peace calls for a serious consideration of reintegrating the bottom-up process in conjunction with top-down approaches to provide and achieve sustainable peace.

The complex nature of this conflict, which involves multiple layers of society and impacts the entire region, further emphasises the need to consider peace efforts that involve more of the general population in approaches used. This requires broadening the notion of peacebuilding to include mechanisms and initiatives borne from local contexts, involving and consulting local organizations, and direct outreach to the communities, especially because it is at this level that conflicts develop.

These localized structures and mechanisms contribute to rebuilding the social fabric necessary for durable peace, by incorporating local knowledge from local communities. This is due to maintaining close relations with communities, in order to understand their local realities. Some of the bottom-up approaches employed by local grassroots organizations in South Sudan include strengthening communities by highlighting interdependence. Interdependence is where two or more communities come together, and combine resources that they have in common, such as boreholes and schools. The strategy is used so that communities can see the direct impact of their efforts and the efficacy of interdependence as a functional tool in day-to-day life. Communities also employ constituency dialogues, where communities create a platform to address their grievances in the presence of traditional, state, and legal representatives.

However, most of the local organizations' efforts are not recognized, monitored, or analyzed, providing very little room for these organizations to grow and minimizing their capacity to contribute to the peace agenda. Thus, local efforts appear unmanageable and continue to lack support, forming a cycle of unproductivity and fragility for the peace strategies that both approaches are employing. Therefore, they need to be strengthened in order to maintain these capabilities, especially during conflict.

Considerable effort has been made by the Government of South Sudan to establish a National Dialogue to involve the population in consultations. Organizations such as the UNDP and UNMISS, among other international NGOs, have also shown efforts in partnering with local organizations. However, there is still a long way to go in building meaningful partnerships with local organizations.

Employment of top-down strategies as a sole means of peacebuilding will continue to disconnect citizens with the peace process meant to address their grievances. Local knowledge remains necessary for the achievement of sustainable and durable peace, and given peacebuilding development over the years in South Sudan, it is important to consider the contribution of other approaches. Stakeholders should analyze and improve their efforts to enhance localized structures. These strategies will provide a more expansive view of peacebuilding.

Emmaculate Liaga is a Doctoral Candidate at University of Pretoria, South Africa. She was a former Southern Voices Scholar Network for Peacebuilding in Fall 2017.