The Small Arms Survey’s Mapping Actors and Alliances Project for South Sudan (MAAPSS) held its seventh closed-door webinar on Thursday 4 November.

The Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) Expert Briefings are a 5-part webinar series that is taking place (almost) every Tuesday from 11 May until 15 June 2021 at 2pm Geneva time. Each live webinar briefing features one of our SANA experts addressing contemporary security issues in North Africa and Sahel-Sahara region, and reflecting on the questions received from the audience.

This report examines the extent to which the Juba Declaration's primary objective of unity between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) has been achieved. In so doing, it describes what institutional obstacles remain to the further integration of the two groups, discusses which particular former SSDF groups and leaders are resisting integration, and suggests how security has improved or deteriorated as a result of the Juba Declaration.

The economy and culture of the Nilotic people of southern Sudan are based on cattle. Protecting that precious asset is a central concern, particularly among youth in the cattle camps. With the intensification of the southern civil war in the  early 1990s,  the  youth  of  Nuerland  began  acquiring  large  numbers  of modern small arms and light weapons, which allowed them to protect com­munity  property  and  obtain  cattle  and  other  goods  from  their  neighbours.

Eastern and Central Equatoria States played distinctive roles in the two Suda-nese civil wars, the effects of which are still reverberating today. The current widespread insecurity, taking the form of tribal and resource-based conflict, armed group activity, and criminal violence, stems largely from shifting alli-ances, South–South conflict, and the politicization of armed groups during the second civil war and its aftermath.

In  an  effort  to  consolidate  its  authority,  eliminate  rival  bases  of  power,  and reduce inter-tribal violence, the president of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) authorized the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and state author-ities to conduct a six-month civilian disarmament campaign across South Sudan from June through the end of November 2008. The campaign followed previ-ous local ad hoc civilian disarmament initiatives in Lakes and Jonglei States in 2006 and elsewhere before that.

For the four-year-old Government of Southern Sudan, 2009 was a punishing year. It struggled to manage multiple financial, governance, and security crises while fighting for implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agree-ment. Looming large were CPA-mandated legislative and executive elections scheduled for April 2010 and a referendum on Southern self-determination in January 2011. For much of the year, tensions between the ruling National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army were high, with mutual recriminations over stalled aspects of the peace process.

This paper takes a critical look at the first, ongoing phase of the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration ( DDR) process in Southern Sudan, and specifically at the reintegration component. It briefly outlines how DDR is currently implemented as well as its progress to date. It discusses the dynamics and challenges of reintegrating ex-combatants into local communities in light of the current security environment, and considers how to minimize risks of further destabilization and insecurity due to DDR.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) is engaged in a process of transfor-mation: it is undergoing a conversion from a guerrilla force into an affordable, professional, and disciplined regular force designed to operate under democratic civil control of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) or, at an appropri-ate  future  date,  as  part  of  a  national  army  under  a  government  of  national unity or its unified successor.1 The milestones for this process are outlined in the SPLA White Paper on Defence, which the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly endorsed in June 2008 (GoSS, 2008

The security forces of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) are engaged in reform and development processes to improve their ability to respond to current and emerging threats, while facing a lack of resources and growing pressures to be more professional, affordable, and accountable. The objectives, strategies, and plans for reform and development are the subject of numerous policy doc-uments produced in the pre- and post-independence periods.