Sudan Peace Fund

September 20, 2002 - October 2005

Please note this is a closed archived program.

Varying degrees of conflict can be found throughout southern Sudan, ranging from deeply rooted structural issues embedded in attitudes, systems and beliefs, to conflict arising from proximate sources of tension, to flare-ups resulting from unexpected causes.  Areas along the southern border with Uganda, for example, tend to be relatively stable, with conflict largely due to the presence of internally displaced persons, while areas to the north west tend to exhibit sudden and violent flare-ups owing to incursions of the war.
Many efforts at reconciliation in the south-to-south peace building effort of the past five years have commenced with resolution of highly personal grievances—such as the restitution of stolen cattle by one person to another—which allowed communities to understand that solutions are possible. Other efforts have tackled economic issues through, for example, encouraging "peace markets" at which previously warring tribes learn to appreciate the net benefit of trade. Increasingly, reconciliation efforts are becoming more sophisticated based on the accretion of direct experience and observation. Communities are encouraged to diagnose the evolution and/or root causes of conflict through community mapping and other techniques, thereby attaining compromises. In some instances, efforts at reconciliation target particular community members more likely to be interested in peace and stability, such as women or youth, to encourage them to become catalysts of change.

Pact's approach

In late 2002 USAID launched a new program, the Sudan Peace Fund Program, to reinforce and expand the number of zones of stability currently found in Western Equatoria, southern Bahr el Ghazal, and parts of the Upper Nile, and to extend their reach in other marginalized, opposition-controlled areas of the country. The program supported an improved environment for peace through grass-roots reconciliation, consolidation of grass-roots peace building, and delivery of peace dividends to reinforce progress towards peace. Underlying each of these efforts is capacity building to minimize risk to participants and to generate programmatic impact.
Pact's approach to program implementation entails enhancing:

The program contained six distinct components. The first component—the design phase—set the stage for subsequent program implementation. Consultative stakeholder meetings, conflict mapping, and the development of standards for program engagement will result in a general plan of action to govern program activities through the first year. The other components—continuous identification and mapping of entry points; community-based dialogue, facilitation and mediation; rapid response interventions; consolidation of peace at the grass-roots level; and consolidation of peace at the sub-national/regional level—comprise the range of interventions to be pursued over the life of the program.