Don’t give up on the hard road to peace in South Sudan

[John Ashworth]

I was recently asked to write an article on the current state of
affairs in South Sudan for UK's Policy Brief. It can be read online
at: https://policybrief.org/briefs/dont-give-up-on-the-hard-road-to-peace-in-south-sudan/

Abstract

South Sudan has largely disappeared from international news dominated
by other conflicts, yet it demands our attention. The low-level
conflict that followed the failing of the 2015 and then the 2018
political agreements between President Kiir’s Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement in Government (SPLM-IG) and Vice-President
Machar’s SPLM in Opposition threatens to engulf the world’s poorest
and newest country into full scale civil war again. There are plenty
of sparks that could set off this conflagration: far better to
pre-empt it, and act now. But realism is required; international
partners need to recognise that the 2018 political deal is dead. And
they need to reverse their cuts and invest in development aid and in
local as well as national level peacebuilding. It is time to
re-engage.

John Ashworth, 'Don't give up on the hard road to peace in South
Sudan', Policy Brief (policybrief.org), April 2026.

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John Ashworth

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