South Sudan is home to one of the world’s worst hunger crises. Approximately 8.3 million people, or over 70 per cent of the population, face severe food insecurity. This food insecurity is an outcome of multiple compounding factors but violent conflict is a primary driver. Violent conflict has ravaged South Sudan since its independence from Sudan in 2011. A civil war was fought in 2013–2018, mainly along ethnic lines but driven by a desire to control the country’s oil wealth. The war and the continuing levels of violence are spurred by a political marketplace characterized by a rentier economy controlled by politico-military elites that use the oil wealth to buy loyalty and allegiance.
Much of the contemporary violence is driven by sub-national and community actors, albeit with clear links through political marketplace dynamics to the national political and military elites that fought the civil war. In Jonglei and Unity states, community violence partly manifests itself through violent cattle raiding. Conflict and violence since 2011 have displaced nearly 5 million people within the country.
The World Food Programme (WFP) operates in the middle of this intersection between conflict, hunger and displacement. In 2022, it provided food assistance to nearly 6 million people. Over 60 per cent of all the recipients who are intended to benefit from WFP programming, or ‘intended beneficiaries’, receive unconditional food assistance. This food assistance has an impact on conflict and peacebuilding dynamics. This report analyses that impact and draws out the contribution of WFP’s programming to enhancing stability through a reduction in violence and improved basic physical security. Together with a separate deep dive on measurement, this report makes up a country case study on WFP’s contribution to improving the prospects for peace in South Sudan.
The findings are presented through two theories of change (TOCs). The research is based on the assumption that there is a link between food security and violence, while recognizing that this link is highly complex, deeply contextual and can change over time and place. Recognizing the importance of context, the report captures WFP’s contribution at a specific location and point in time. Nonetheless, broader insights can be gained from this research to inform programming elsewhere in South Sudan.
Because WFP South Sudan is already intentionally leveraging its programming to contribute to peace, the proposed TOCs serve two purposes: first, to articulate the pathways through which WFP programming already contributes to enhanced stability through reduced violence and improved basic physical security; and, second, by identifying how this contribution can be enhanced.
Theory of change 1
If General Food Distribution plus (GFD+) contained a more intentionally and locally anchored peace component and were scaled-up, then WFP’s crisis response could contribute to violence reduction by enhancing IDP/host community relations and mitigating destabilizing dynamics linked to negative coping strategies and resource competition.
This TOC explores the potential for GFD+ as an innovative aid modality to contribute to enhanced stability and violence reduction by focusing on two specific settings for internally displaced persons (IDPs). South Sudan is experiencing one of the world’s largest displacement crises. Protracted displacement crises, whether internal displacement or refugee crises, have been linked to economic, social, environmental and political instability.
While the government encourages the return of people displaced by the conflict, most of the residents of IDP camps in Bor and Bentiu interviewed for this research indicated that they preferred to remain where they were. WFP has provided emergency assistance to the IDP population and surrounding host communities in Bor and Bentiu since 2013. WFP began piloting GFD+ in 2021. It seeks to integrate an unconditional resilience component into its emergency programming. Against continuing high levels of violent conflict and uncertainties around the prospects for return, WFP’s GFD+ activities could enhance stability and help to build a degree of normality for displaced people and host communities while laying the ground for sustainable and voluntary return. While this is the underlying purpose of GFD+, it was clear from the research that this component could be made more intentionally designed and scaled-up. The research identifies three main pathways through which GFD+ could be leveraged to intentionally contribute to enhancing stability, and thereby to increasing the prospects for peace. The first two are linked to strengthening the processes around designing and delivering GFD+ projects: by extending the criteria for selecting collaborating partners and enhancing the capacity of existing partners; and through adapting its community-based participatory planning (CBPP) approach to ensure that activities reflect local understandings of conflict and peace. The third is connected to the content of the ‘plus’ component, by designing GFD+ activities based on clearly articulated pathways through which this contribution occurs.
Theory of change 2
If WFP’s emergency response programming is leveraged to support and strengthen the restoration of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms and existing infrastructures for peace, then local violence could be reduced and stability enhanced amid escalating conflict dynamics.
This TOC takes a broader look at how WFP, through a combination of its specific programming (including GFD+) and long-standing presence, the level of trust it enjoys and its collaborations, can impact deeper structural drivers of violence. This can be achieved through a particular focus on restoring traditional conflict resolution mechanisms and the promotion of violence restraint.
Community violence in Jonglei and Unity states largely manifests itself through violent raiding and revenge attacks, predominantly perpetrated by heavily armed community defence groups or militias embedded in the cattle culture. Violent conflict between and among communities is increasing and is directly linked to the rising levels of food insecurity in South Sudan. At the same time, WFP’s resources are being reduced. As people face the prospect of losing food assistance, tensions and social unrest have flared. Making matters worse, the structures of customary authority that have traditionally regulated community violence are being eroded or co-opted by regional and national elites.
Despite the worsening outlook for conflict, stability and food security—or, perhaps, because of it—there is an appetite and willingness to break the conflict and food insecurity trap. For this reason, leveraging WFP’s emergency response programming to support much-needed efforts to restore traditional conflict resolution mechanisms and the ability of customary authorities to promote normative restraint could contribute significantly to local violence reduction and increased stability amid escalating conflict dynamics.
However, while traditional conflict resolution mechanisms and structures of customary authority can resolve conflict issues if empowered to do so, they also risk perpetuating structural violence. These mechanisms can help to preserve the patriarchal structures that drive gender-based violence, whereas differences in traditions and customs between community groupings can be accentuated to incite division and conflict. Any efforts to restore traditional conflict resolution mechanisms must therefore be accompanied by efforts to address exclusionary practices. In the light of the above complexities, efforts to restore traditional conflict resolution mechanisms must accurately identify hierarchies and where power over violence lies, as well as the restraints on spiritual and political leadership and authority. WFP can and does make an important contribution to these ends. The TOC proposes that WFP’s programming, as well as its deep contextual awareness and understanding of power dynamics—combined with its access to the most conflict-affected areas and regular dialogue with actors with the power to instigate violence or promote restraint—can be leveraged to build trust. This could strengthen existing peacebuilding infrastructures, address the exclusionary structures inherent in traditional conflict resolution mechanisms and provide peace dividends through GFD+, thereby increasing the cost of mobilization.
This is the executive summary of the Report by SIPRI. Authored by Caroline Delgado. The full report can be found here.