South Sudan: The Birth of a Nation and the Prospects for Peace and Development

Written evidence submitted by Saferworld

1. Saferworld has prepared this submission of evidence based on our work to prevent violent conflict in Sudan / South Sudan since 2002. More information on Saferworld’s work in South Sudan is contained as an annexe.

2. This submission focuses on how DFID can support the provision of security and justice as basic services and help to improve governance in South Sudan. It is organised in the following parts:

- The context: insecurity and underdevelopment in South Sudan (p.1)

- Civilian disarmament (p.3)

- Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (p.5)

- International engagement in South Sudan (p.7)

- Annexe: About Saferworld’s work in South Sudan (p.10)

The context: insecurity and underdevelopment in South Sudan

3. Newly independent South Sudan faces many significant challenges – from establishing accountable, inclusive and responsive political / governance systems to providing security and peaceful development and building the economy needed for a viable state.

4. In this context, South Sudan’s security and development challenges cannot be disentangled; the two are intimately and intricately connected. Widespread insecurity has the very real potential to impede South Sudan’s broader economic development, whilst many of the country’s security challenges have their roots in its severe underdevelopment.

5. Communities in South Sudan experience a range of conflicts and types of insecurity – including armed cattle-raiding, abductions, domestic-, sexual- and gender-based violence, and disputes over access to resources like land, water and grazing. A complex multitude of factors contribute to this situation – some relating directly to a lack of security provision and wide spread availability of small arms, others to a lack of basic services or livelihood options.

6. At the same time, communities themselves make few ‘sectoral distinctions’ in the way that donors, INGOs and development commentators usually do. When asked what makes them feel ‘insecure’, Saferworld has found that people will usually respond with a complex melange of issues including – inter alia – short-comings in policing, attacks from armed groups and a lack of education or access to healthcare. If a peaceful and prosperous future for South Sudan relies, at least in part, on the new government’s ability to win the confidence of its people by meeting their expectations, then it will be first important to understand the way communities articulate their needs and what their expectations are for different national and international actors in meeting them.

7. To cut through this ‘Gordian knot’ of insecurity and underdevelopment, national and international actors – including DFID – will need to take a large-scale and multi-sectoral approach that integrates programming across a number of different areas.

The ‘security gap’

8. This submission makes frequent reference to South Sudan’s ‘security gap’ which is worth further illustrating.

9. South Sudan is an extremely large territory with difficult terrain and very little by way of physical infrastructure such as roads, power or communications. The formal state institutions normally charged with providing people with everyday security and justice services – the police, judiciary and penal services – are chronically under-capacitated, whilst the South Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) is in need of serious reform. While DFID is to be congratulated for supporting several large-scale programmes to strengthen the capacity and professionalism of the security and justice sector, it will take a long time before these bear fruit and South Sudan’s security and justice services are able to serve the entire country effectively.

10. In Saferworld’s experience, these factors contribute to a vacuum of formal security and justice provision for many communities across the country: a situation in which the state just cannot be relied on to provide effective security and justice services.

11. To bridge this ‘security gap’, people in South Sudan turn to a number of different strategies. Small arms and light weapons (SALW – typified by the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle) are extremely common in South Sudan, and often held by civilians as a means of protection. South Sudan has a great many ‘non-state armed groups’ with varying compositions and objectives – from community-based self-defence groups, to militias, armed criminal groups and cattle-raiding groups. Finally, a multitude of informal or ‘traditional’ systems of dispute resolution, security provision and justice provision are used in many communities.

Jonglei and Warrap states – illustrating the security-development nexus

12. As part of an EU-funded project to look at ordinary people’s perspectives on peacebuilding across a number of conflict-affected and fragile countries [1] , Saferworld has recently conducted research into how communities in Jonglei and Warrap states view their development and security challenges.

13. In both Jonglei and Warrap, respondents in focus group discussions and key informant interviews all cited cattle-raiding as their primary source of insecurity. Although cattle-raiding has a long history in South Sudan, in recent years it has increased in scale and intensity and now routinely results in large numbers of civilian casualties. In September this year, for instance, AFP reported that cattle-raiding in South Sudan had killed over 1000 people since June and quoted the UN’s SGSR to South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, as describing cattle-raiding as a ‘crisis that threatens to engulf the fledgling nation’ [2] . Cattle-raiding is also associated with attacks on women and girls and the abduction of children.

14. In Warrap State, respondents also cited access to land and water as a key concern, although this issue is intimately linked to cattle-raiding as people compete for scarce grazing and water resources for their cattle – with raiding increasing when there is more pressure on the availability of pasture and water (for instance, during the dry season).

15. At the same time, respondents very often saw improvements in the provision of services by the South Sudan Police Service (SSPS) as ideally being the primary means of addressing this insecurity (and, concomitantly, stressed the need to build more roads and communication infrastructure in order to facilitate the SSPS to deliver improved services).

16. This finding is important as it demonstrates that communities may currently see the solution to something that has its roots in developmental challenges (access to land and water resources / lack of alternative livelihoods) as being based in improved security provision. As security provision is often seen by communities in South Sudan as the responsibility of the state, whilst development responses are perceived to be largely the domain of the ‘international community’, this perception of SSPS service delivery being the key determinant of security has the potential to place unrealistic expectations on the state.

17. At the same time, in both states (and more generally across South Sudan), there is an extremely high prevalence of small arms. People typically keep guns for self-protection in the absence of other security provision. Such a proliferation of small arms amongst the civilian population means that security incidents have the potential to escalate rapidly and significantly increase the levels of violence associated with, for instance, cattle-raiding.

18. Even these limited examples begin to build a picture of the complex interplay between development and security challenges in South Sudan, with underdevelopment exacerbating insecurity in a context where a lack of formal or informal security provision and easy access to small arms mean that insecurity is intensified and itself undermines efforts to address developmental challenges.

19. Clearly, to address such a complex situation, efforts to address security challenges must be integrated with broader development efforts.

Civilian disarmament

20. As indicated, civilian possession of SALW remains a significant obstacle to promoting security for communities in South Sudan. But, if poorly managed, efforts to disarm populations can potentially act as a catalyst for violence between communities or result in clashes between the military and the communities that are to be disarmed. Uneven disarmament can also cause disarmed communities to become vulnerable to attacks from still armed neighbours.

21. Since 2005, the GoSS has implemented a number of disarmament campaigns none of which have so far achieved a widespread reduction in weapons possession but all of which have come at the price of short-term stability – and often at tragic human cost. For example, in 2006, forceful disarmament carried out by the SPLA in Jonglei left more than 1000 people dead after inter-communal fighting when some saw opportunity in the ‘vulnerability’ created within disarmed communities. In February 2010, in Cuibet County in Lakes State, members of a community who had been disarmed (and subsequently felt vulnerable to attack) attempted to break into storage areas to retrieve weapons that had been collected from them by the SPLA. This led to a confrontation with the SPLA which resulted in at least 30 deaths.

22. Despite the problems associated with disarmament, successfully reducing the number of small arms held by civilians will be a key step in reducing the potential for violence within South Sudan. However, as communities most often retain arms in response to real inter-communal violence, perceptions of threat from hostile neighbours and a lack of state capacity to provide security, it is important that disarmament is seen as only one component of integrated programming that seeks to provide security and address underlying causes of conflict between communities.

The current disarmament campaign in Lakes, Unity and Warrap states

23. In August 2011, a presidential decree was issued calling for the SPLA to begin a civilian disarmament campaign in Lakes, Unity and Warrap states – early indications suggest that this latest round of disarmament has learnt many of the lessons of previous disarmament campaigns.

24. The first step of the disarmament campaign in Lakes, for instance, was a community awareness programme undertaken by county commissioners and traditional authorities. Weapons were also registered in communities with lists then passed up the administrative chain to the executive chiefs, the ‘payam’ adminstrators and county commissioners.

25. This first stage of civilian disarmament has been voluntary, with people handing over weapons firstly to the local chiefs and then the SPLA collecting the gathered weapons from the chiefs. However, the true test of whether this disarmament exercise has learnt from previous mistakes will be the next phase of the campaign, which will see the SPLA conducting ‘cordon and search’ operations to seize weapons that were not relinquished voluntarily. Whether or not the SPLA is able to conduct these house-to-house searches peacefully and lawfully will be critical to stability and the potential for future rearmament.

Linking disarmament to wider security and development initiatives

26. The approach to disarmament currently being taken in Lakes State is, so far, a definite improvement on the past and so is to be welcomed. However, the really critical issue will be how the state will provide some form of security to those communities that have been disarmed and potentially left with a ‘security gap’. Currently the state’s limited capacity means it is unable to help communities successfully bridge this gap – which has the potential to contribute to conflict and insecurity as other communities attempt to exploit perceived advantage over disarmed communities, as happened in Jonglei in 2006 (paragraph 21).

27. In the immediate future, this means that GoSS – supported by international actors – needs to focus resources into improving the provision of security by the SPSS wherever possible. Where this is not possible, efforts need to be made to better understand the informal security providers that operate in the areas subject to disarmament campaigns and find ways to engage with them to limit the potential for conflict.

28. In the context of South Sudan’s enduring security gap, local communities often turn to a range of informal ‘service providers’ for safety and security. These informal security providers take many different forms – for instance self-defence groups which operate under the authority of local politicians / chiefs or ‘monyomiji’ groups [3] , amongst others. International and more formal national actors have so far been uncertain about how best to engage with these groups since, whilst they may often fill a legitimate ‘security gap’, they may not always do so with legitimacy and may sometimes even contribute to insecurity and conflict. When these groups have links to particular political actors, that also creates additional challenges whether the groups are abusive or not.

29. However, if acting with legitimate authority and in an accountable and non-abusive manner, these groups have the potential to provide an additional resource for the state in providing security to its citizens. For this reason, Saferworld believes increased effort should be put into improving understanding about the variety of South Sudan’s informal security actors, their sources of legitimacy, and good and bad practices; strengthening links between informal security actors and state security actors; and ensuring that future security and justice policy takes into account the influence of informal security providers as part of the broader process of security sector reform.

Best practice for disarmament campaigns

30. Since 2007, Saferworld has supported the South Sudan Bureau for Community Security and Small Arms Control [4] . The Bureau has developed a number of points to guide civilian disarmament campaigns and Saferworld suggests these criteria provide a good model for the type of disarmament campaigns that should be implemented in South Sudan:

· Ensure that each state has an agreed security strategy and action plan in place before commencing disarmament (and the resources and the partners to implement it)

· Ensure that adequate security forces are trained and in place to avoid creating security vacuums after civil disarmament

· Remove the guns from the hands of unauthorized civilians and ensure that they are properly inventoried and securely stored

· Ensure that communities benefit from development to build confidence in peace processes and the government

The committee should consider asking DFID:

- whether it sees its position as a key funder for police and military reform in South Sudan as providing an opportunity to push for greater coordination between actors working on different aspects of civilian disarmament and support civil society to raise awareness about voluntary disarmament based on the model outlined by the South Sudan Bureau for Community Security and Disarmament (paragraph 30).

- what its plans are for promoting an improved understanding of the potential for legitimate and accountable informal security and justice providers to help bridge the ‘security gap’ in South Sudan.

Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration

31. As opposed to the civilian disarmament described above, ‘Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration’ (DDR) programming looks at how to disarm and reintegrate back into society combatants and ex-combatants after a period of fighting has formally come to an end. In South Sudan, after a period integrating armed groups into the SPLA, DDR now focuses on currently serving members of the SPLA.

The background to South Sudan’s DDR

32. DDR has been taking place in South Sudan since 2005 as part of a broader defence reform programme aiming to create a more appropriate, affordable and accountability military and as a confidence building component of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) –90,000 soldiers each from the south and north were scheduled to complete DDR programmes. Supported by UNMIS and the UNDP, the programme was led by the national government, as stipulated by the CPA. The actual number of ex-combatants to go through the DDR process in South Sudan has been substantially less than envisaged – the figure reported by the South Sudan DDR Commission was 12,525 as of 12 August 2011 [5] .

33. The DDR process in South Sudan has suffered from many problems, notably logistical planning that did not take into consideration the operational realities of South Sudan. In the period leading up to South Sudan’s referendum and independence, there was also uncertainty in the south about the potential threat from the north. The SPLA was consequently hesitant to reduce the number of its soldiers, instead using the DDR process as a means to provide for so-called ‘special needs groups’ – including the war-wounded, retired soldiers, women and children.

34. And in South Sudan’s extremely underdeveloped economy, there were in any case extremely limited economic opportunities open to these leaving the SPLA – something that will be critical to address if South Sudan’s future DDR efforts are to succeed.

A new opportunity for consultation

35. With the end of the CPA, and so an end to CPA mandated programmes, South Sudan’s DDR Commission (along with other national and international stakeholders) is currently using the opportunity to design a new DDR strategy. Although there have already been discussions on the new DDR strategy within government, the SPLA and with international partners, there has been very limited consultation with civil society actors (national or international) or the private sector.

36. Saferworld believes DFID could highlight the need for broader consultation, sensitisation and awareness-raising on the DDR strategy. For instance, further work is required to identify the range of employment options and skills packages required to enable more voluntary participation in the DDR process – something that the private sector and civil society may have valuable perspectives on.

Integrating DDR with livelihoods and economic development

37. Without ensuring there are adequate economic opportunities for those being reintegrated then there will be a significant risk of future DDR merely sowing the seeds for renewed instability. The SPLA may be a bloated institution that soaks up a disproportionate amount of South Sudan’s budget [6] , but pushing for the rapid down-sizing of the SPLA before there are viable livelihoods options available for all the soldiers this would release from military service would likely have a severely destabilising effect on security in the country.

38. At the same time, many male soldiers live on bases with their wives and children who have established economic activities there and would suffer a disruption to their livelihoods if they had to move – supporting them to find alternative economic opportunities will also be important.

39. So it is essential that DDR programming does not take place in isolation but is, instead, approached as a long-term process which is fully integrated with broader livelihood and economic development plans.

Ensuring DDR programmes respond to community needs

40. It will also be important for the UK to champion a DDR programme that is responsive to the needs of communities as well as the SPLA.

41. DDR programmes cannot be designed only with the needs of ex-combatants in mind, but also need to take into account the communities into which these ex-combatants are reintegrating. International experience has shown that failing to do so tends to generate discontent and resentment between ex-combatants and their communities.

42. Instead, DDR programmes need to ensure disarmament and demobilisation efforts are part of a larger package of measures to ensure that both ex-combatants and other community members all have improved economic and livelihoods prospects.

The committee should consider asking DFID what its plans are for ensuring the new DDR strategy currently being developed is based on full consultation with South Sudanese private sector and civil society; fully integrated with broader livelihoods and economic development programmes; and responsive to the needs of communities.

International engagement in South Sudan

43. Given the close and complex relationship between development and security in South Sudan, there is a pressing need for donors and other international actors, including INGOS, to take an approach that integrates development with people-centred security responses.

The international policy context

44. South Sudan’s independence comes at a time of ever increasing recognition that previous approaches to development simply have not worked in the poorest conflict-affected and fragile states.

45. Around 1.5 billion people live in countries that could be described as ‘conflict-affected or fragile’ but, as the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development [7] makes clear, not one ‘low-income fragile or conflict-affected country’ has yet achieved a single MDG and few, if any, are on track to do so despite around 30% of OECD DAC Members’ ODA being directed to these countries [8] .

46. The World Development Report was explicit in not only highlighting that existing development paradigms have failed in conflict-affected countries, but also in proposing the outline of a new model for development in these contexts – one that prioritises building citizen confidence, stresses the importance of informal and formal ‘institutions’ and recommends initial efforts be directed towards security, justice and jobs in order to lay the foundations for broader development.

47. Similarly, since 2009, the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding [9] – a partnership of donors, international civil society and the governments of some fragile states (including South Sudan) – has met to discuss detailed ideas on how to make aid delivery more effective in addressing the challenges of conflict and fragility. These plans are due to be presented as a ‘new deal for international engagement in fragile situations’ at the Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in November this year. Key to this new deal is likely to be the idea of working towards a set of ‘peacebuilding and statebuilding goals’ in fragile countries as an interim step before concentrating on the MDG targets. These PSGs, as defined in the ‘Monrovia Roadmap’ [10] , include developing a more inclusive political system, ensuring people’s security and access to justice, creating jobs and economic opportunity for all, and establishing the provision of equitable basic services.

48. Finally, in the UK, July saw HMG publish its Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS) – a combined DFID, FCO and MOD strategy to guide the UK’s efforts to promote overseas stability [11] . The BSOS definition of stability emphasises "… political systems which are representative and legitimate… and societies in which human rights and rule of law are respected, basic needs are met, security established and opportunities for social and economic development open to all." Such a progressive vision of ‘stability’ is extremely welcome and implies a substantial role for the UK’s international development efforts, in close coordination with defence and diplomacy.

49. Such internationally-driven processes are welcome and have the potential to significantly improve international engagement in fragile situations. Whilst there are obvious dangers in the rapid influx of international actors operational in the country, the fact that many in the international community are currently developing or rethinking their engagements in South Sudan provides an opportunity to put some of these good ideas into practice.

From rhetoric to reality

50. The International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding’s recognition that fragile states most often need to concentrate on a more immediate set of priorities as foundations for achieving the MDGs is welcome. This will be a major shift in direction for international aid policy if the Monrovia Roadmap’s peacebuilding and statebuilding goals are adopted by the international community at Busan. The immediate practical implication of this recognition would be to open up space for developing countries and development partners to concentrate on addressing the issues that underlie fragility, as articulated by the peacebuilding and statebuilding goals, in order to lay the foundation for broader development as articulated by the MDGs.

51. National and international actors will then need to make sure that they are placing ‘conflict sensitivity’ at the heart of their approach in fragile states. This goes far beyond the minimalist idea of ‘do no harm’ (ensuring that development interventions do not inadvertently do anything to exacerbate conflict dynamics) and will require all development actors to ensure their interventions are having the maximum possible positive impact on conflict dynamics.

52. This in turn will mean international actors monitoring their interventions not only against purely development indicators but also a consideration of the impact their interventions are having on peace and conflict dynamics. Properly conceived, most development interventions can play a contributory role to peacebuilding and statebuilding efforts – but the objectives and indicators used for this work will need to be framed in the right way to ensure they do so. When evaluating value for money, DFID should consider requiring its contractors to demonstrate a positive impact on peace and conflict dynamics as well as delivering basic service or other development outcomes.

53. To ensure monitoring of programmes is able to assess the impact development, peacebuilding and security programmes have on each other, it should be based on a shared, and frequently updated, context analysis that defines a country’s security and development challenges and which is used as a key reference point in framing donor programming. Like donors, INGOs operational in South Sudan should likewise ensure they are developing such a shared analysis of the context.

54. The ‘new deal’ which will be proposed at Busan (paragraph 47) is likely to set out a plan for putting such an approach into action. It is based on the idea of conducting ‘fragility assessments’ for fragile countries that would determine the scale and nature of conflict and insecurity in that country; the development of shared visions for a country’s transition from fragility to lasting peace and shared plans for how to get there; and ‘compacts’ between development partners and developing countries to shape the international support provided to put these plans into action. South Sudan would be a strong contender to be one of the first countries where such an approach was first applied if the new deal is agreed at Busan.

55. Such a practical approach would be welcome, if certain important provisions can be met. To make this approach really work in terms of building peaceful states and societies, an emphasis must be put on ensuring that a broad range of stakeholders are given the chance to fully participate in the entire process. ‘Inclusivity’ is not merely a catchword beloved of INGOs – exclusionary political processes that shut out key stakeholders are well known to be a core element of many countries conflict dynamics.

56. For instance, although a desire for increased country ownership is understandable, it will be important that ‘fragility assessments’ are an independently facilitated multi-stakeholder process rather than conducted only by the national government – otherwise they risk missing key issues or facing up to uncomfortable, yet pressing, realities.

57. Similarly, if a ‘shared vision’ for a country’s transition to peace is not actually shared across all stakeholders in a country then it is likely only to inflame conflict and insecurity rather than providing a realistic and credible map out of fragility – Somalia’s transition provides only too real an example of this [12]

58. And any new compacts agreed to guide the nature of international engagement in fragile states should ensure they do not risk becoming exclusionary compacts between national governments and international partners. Instead, these compacts should also be between the national government and the people of the country and should be strengthened by a full role for CSOs and the public in monitoring their success.

The committee should consider asking DFID what its plans are for ensuring that all of its development programmes make a contribution to addressing conflict and security dynamics in South Sudan; working with FCO and MOD to implement HMG BSOS commitments in South Sudan; ensuring that the inclusion and participation of a broad range of stakeholders is protected in the proposed new deal for international engagement in fragile situations; and how it would envisage taking forward the new deal for international engagement in fragile situations if agreed at Busan.

Delivering security and justice programming

59. Delivering on any new approach will also require finding the right ways to actually implement policy. With regards to sensitive security and justice programming, it is worth looking at what lessons have been learnt so far.

60. In South Sudan, DFID has been right to prioritise the investment in state capacity to provide security and justice and should continue to support GoSS efforts to bridge the ‘security gap’.

61. DFID has supported much Sudanese civil society work through the South Sudan Peace Fund but this is coming to an end in March / April next year and, while there are new priorities in the DFID operational plan for South Sudan, it is not yet clear how exactly money will be allocated. Whatever DFID’s final funding allocations look like, it will be important that it continues to support community-focused engagement on security provision, access to justice and peacebuilding.

62. And at the same time, as Saferworld has highlighted in previous submissions to the Committee, the continued push to deliver an increasing aid budget whilst reducing administrative costs [13] has led to more and more programmes being outsourced to external contractors (including INGOs, the private sector and academic institutions).

63. Whilst there are undoubtedly benefits of using external contractors – they allow HMG to draw on specialised capacities which it does not have in house, for instance – due recognition must be given to the risks of outsourcing security and justice programming; work which is inherently political, challenging and sensitive. In particular, HMG must recognise that while it can outsource a considerable degree of implementation to external contractors, it cannot ultimately outsource risk. If a security and justice programme goes seriously off-track, it is unlikely to be a problem for the contractor alone – there are also likely to be substantial reputational, operational and conflict risks for HMG too.

64. Thus, even when implemented by external contractors, HMG still needs to invest appropriate human resources, time and political capital into security and justice programmes. In particular, this means that:

· Security and justice programming requires ‘political back-up’ of the sort most able to be provided by diplomatic staff working in conjunction with other HMG colleagues. Thus, even if programme delivery is outsourced, HMG needs to retain some level of strategic engagement.

· HMG needs to retain a minimum level of managerial oversight to security and justice programmes in order to ensure they are properly integrated into a coordinated framework of engagement in South Sudan for the UK and other international actors.

· In volatile and dynamic contexts such as conflict-affected and fragile states, changes in the context can require – sometimes fundamental – changes in programmes. DFID’s programme contracts need to be able to reflect this reality and be flexible to allow for such changes where needed.

65. The preceding paragraphs are not intended to imply that the use of external contractors is always inappropriate. On the contrary, contractors can make a vital contribution to delivering HMG priorities. However, there is certainly a need to ensure that HMG is designing, contracting, managing and evaluating its outsourced security and justice programmes as appropriately and effectively as possible. As such, this area would benefit from more serious investigation and lessons learning.

The committee should consider asking DFID for detailed feedback on the performance of security and justice programming currently outsourced to consortia in South Sudan and the other countries this inquiry has focused on (DRC, Burundi and Rwanda); and any lessons that can be learned from these experiences to date, particularly in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of different delivery and partnership models used.

Annexe: About Saferworld and our work in South Sudan

Saferworld is an independent, international NGO that works to prevent violent conflict and promote cooperative approaches to security. We believe everyone should be able to lead peaceful, fulfilling lives free from insecurity and armed violence.

We aim to understand what causes violence by talking to the people it affects and then bringing together communities, governments, civil society and the international community to develop solutions. Using this experience, we also work with the UK, EU, UN and others to develop ways of supporting societies address conflict and insecurity.

We have around 90 staff based in London and abroad and our funding for 2010-2011 was approximately £6.8 million – mainly in the form of government grants from Canada, Denmark, the EU, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Saferworld has been working in Sudan since 2002 and established an office in Juba in 2007. Initially our work focused on facilitating Sudanese civil society input into international conflict prevention policies affecting Sudan. After the signing of the CPA, Saferworld developed an in-depth programme of work in South Sudan, based on the recognition that intra-South conflicts needed to be resolved for the CPA to succeed. During this time, Saferworld focused on:

· Strengthening the capacity of the Government of South Sudan to respond to community security concerns

· Strengthening the capacity of South Sudanese civil society to influence security and SALW policy

· Promoting community-level approaches to SALW control that contribute to peacebuilding

· Supporting the Government of South Sudan and international agencies to integrate SALW control and community security into broader security and justice / peacebuilding policies

· Supporting work to address cross-border SALW and security issues

Since South Sudan’s independence, Saferworld has focused its approach on contributing to building the foundations for a responsive and accountable South Sudan state with an active, inclusive society, jointly capable of preventing conflicts, ensuring effective security and justice, and generating a durable environment for equitable economic development.

October 2011