Over the coming months, Permanent Condemnation in South Sudan Series will be critically examining the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and its impact on peace and stability in the world’s newest state, South Sudan.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country. Its creation in 2011 was intended to provide good governance and political stability for the ethnic groups of the southern area of Sudan, formerly Africa’s largest country, who had been involved in conflict with their northern compatriots for all but 11 of the 59 years since independence in 1956.   Good governance in this new sovereign state would mean comprehensive political representation and democratisation, better distribution of oil wealth, strong economic recovery, better public service delivery (roads, education, health), and promote unity within the region. Yet within 2 years of its creation, the country descended back into civil conflict.

So what went wrong?   The framework for the new state was laid out under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (‘CPA’), the end result in 2005 of 12 years of peace negotiations, negotiated by various actors but principally the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD). Although the CPA brought an end to 21 years of civil war, the return to conflict after a disagreement between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the former Vice President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon suggested it failed to redress a set of political, economic, social and administrative grievances. It ended up making separation attractive, consolidated the pre-CPA contested regime, and intensified political instability and socioeconomic crises nationwide.  The governance model intended to bring stability to the area never materialised. It is unclear whether the CPA was “comprehensive enough” or set out an effective framework for resolving Sudan’s protracted wars and political instability.

The series  shall evaluate this critical process for this oil rich state as a contribution towards a much better understanding of the dynamics of the South Sudan conflict and future war-to-peace transition efforts.