Project profile — Women's Engagement in South Sudan Peace Process

Expected results for this project include: (1) office of Special Envoy on South Sudan includes gender and women’s issues as central to resolving the conflict in South Sudan and included in negotiations with Intergovernmental Authority on Development leaders and all stakeholders, including parties to the conflict; and (2) women organisations are mobilized to advocate for gender sensitive revitalisation process.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (January 2020) include: (1) a Senior Gender Advisor was recruited and retained to work at IGAD Special Envoy Office (up from zero in 2017) to facilitate gender mainstream and women’s participation as a part of the transitional and peace making process; (2) three key action points (up from 2 in 2017) related to gender and the empowerment of women were achieved in the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), which included: 35% Affirmative Action, one female Vice President and the establishment of a Women Enterprise Development Fund; (3) 1,429 women from across South Sudan (up from 0 in 2017) were mobilized to participate in the peace processes, including the High Level Revitalized Forum of the peace agreement; (4) three commitments (up from 0 in 2017) were made from policy makers and the Transnational Government of National Unity on women’s engagement; (5) four guidelines, tools and frameworks (up from zero) were developed for gender and conflict analysis, mediation and conflict resolution; (6) 360 women and 68 men community champions (there were 400 men community champions in 2017) were directly engaged in preventing and ending sexual harassment and sexual and gender-based violence; and (7) 6,286 women (up from 765 in 2017) at community levels, were mobilized to participate in community peace dialogues, advocacy initiatives, and peace, awareness and sensitization events/activities across the country. These results show a positive increase in the impact of the Senior Gender Advisor within the IGAD Special Envoy Office on the peace process in South Sudan.