An investigation into the efficacy of regional peace building mechanisms in South Sudan

Abstract

The Conflict Barometer 2020 names Africa as the most conflict-prone continent in the world in the past twenty years. There has been a prolifération of régional organizations and their boldness in addressing peace and security among States in Africa. A core objective in the workings of régional organizations, including the AU and IGAD is the promotion of peace, security, stability and good govemance as well as the peaceful settlement of disputes among member States. These régional organizations hâve established peace and security architecture and originated médiation and pre-emptive diplomacy, peace-making and peace building operations including IGAD response to the Sudan civil war in 2005, AU response to Kenya élection crisis in 2007 and OAU response to Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict in 2000. Using the documentary analysis and évaluation methodology, this study that following the outbreak of civil strife in South Sudan in December 2015, IGAD dispatched a médiation team to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table in a bid to bring about a peaceful end to the latest conflict in the world’s youngest nation, with rather mixed results. From the analysis, it was also discovered that IGAD has played a more prominent rôle in recent years in peacebuilding in South Sudan from the relative peace ushered in by the CPA in 2005 through to the ARCSS and the R-ARCSS. The study further established that despite AU’s détermination and notable efforts to address conflict threats in the South Sudan, the AU’s capabilities are undermined by limited supranational capacity and resources making it difficult for the AU to explore the bounds of its résolve to provide African solutions to African problems. With the loss of the highly structured framework within which international behaviour was regulated in a post-Westphalian international era, the study concludes that régional peacebuilding mechanisms play an even more critical rôle promoting peacebuilding. Flowever, their prominence notwithstanding, it is impérative that the régional peacebuilding mechanismsare efficient and effective in their quest for peace and that the lost moments in the peacebuilding processes in South Sudan can be great lessons for improved efficiency and adequacy of régional peacebuilding mechanisms. The study therefore notes that the absence of a hégémonie power from amongst the IGAD member States déridés the possibility of effective peacebuilding due to the nonexistence of both incentive and coersive means for promoting peace and stability. The study thus recommends that a more inclusive approach devoid of the elitist nature of the current peacebuilding efforts and the deployment of a ground force by the African Union would ail be key to the peacebuilding process in South Sudan.