South Sudan’s independence in 2011 marked the end of a prolonged period of conflict with its northerly neighbour Sudan. In our new report, we assess the opportunities for building a more positive peace in the new country.
South Sudan emerged as an independent nation in 2011 after decades of war. One year later, Alert presents the findings of a wide-ranging Peace and Conflict Assessment. Commissioned by Pact and funded by the Department for International Development, the assessment looks beyond the immediate problems faced by South Sudanese, and proposes a long-term approach to building peace.
South Sudan emerged as an independent nation in 2011 after decades of war. One year on, Alert presents the findings of a wide-ranging peace and conflict assessment, looking at immediate problems and proposing long-term solutions for building peace.
In the more than 50 years since its independence, Sudan has suffered from recurring civil wars causing extensive suffering and devastation. With the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 hopes rose for peaceful co-existence and development. However, since the secession of South Sudan in 2011, the situation can at best be described as non-war. A positive peace seems to be far away.

International Alert has recently launched a paper that explores some profound questions about peace and peacebuilding in South Sudan and Sudan, as a contribution to the debate about how to build a more comprehensive and more stable peace within and between the two Sudans.
Photo: © Richard Barltrop
This report analyses the EU’s institutional capacity to carry out conflict early warning, early action, and conflict prevention in two of the most conflict-ridden and war-affected countries in the world: Sudan and South Sudan. It analyses the institutional aspects of EU conflict early warning approaches and assesses the extent to which they are applied in-country and in Brussels to inform policies, strategies and programming processes.
This report analyses the EU’s institutional capacity to carry out conflict early warning, early action, and conflict prevention in two of the most conflict-ridden and war-affected countries in the world - Sudan and South Sudan - concluding that the EU needs to identify its peacebuilding niche in a heavily crowded field of actors.