Enhancing Women’S Access To Land To Consolidate Peace In South Sudan

Land in South Sudan is not only central to nation building, but also a major contributor to conflicts, poverty, and underdevelopment. The crisis in South Sudan has led to an increase in land-related disputes, extensive secondary occupation and land grabbing by local power holders. Land belonging to IDPs and returnees who fled during the conflict has, in manyinstances, been grabbed by combatants or illegally occupied by other IDPs. Where customary authority over rural land changes, members of the displaced tribes are unable to return or access their land, despite having legitimate and overlapping rights to the land. These issues not only present obstacles to the voluntary and safe return of IDPs, people in Protection of Civilians Camps, and returnees but also result in disputes and clashes between returning IDPs and communities currently occupying the land and host communities.Disputes over land are becoming widespread and increasingly difficult to resolve as individuals and communities with different connections to customary and statutory authorities try to gain control over land. Recent studies show that the common causes of land disputes include squatting, secondary occupation, and boundary disputes between individuals and between communities. Since the outbreak of conflict in 2013, the number of disputes has increased, particularly between ethnic groups. Conflict in 2016 also resulted displacement and many women headed IDPs are residing inside collective sites and places in and around Wau Town in open spaces owned by government institutions or others. Disputes arise between returnees and host communities access to and control of community land and between government authorities and communities or individuals over the government’s control and management of rural land for investment. Competing claims to ownership or use of the same piece of land from communities or ethnic groups, as opposed to individuals, have also significantly intensified the risk of larger-scale violent conflict.The country’s descent into violence in December 2013 was a function of domestic power struggle and political contest within the ruling SPLM and spread quickly to the regions of Greater Upper Nile, including Jonglei and Greater Unity States. With the recurrence of armed conflict in July 2016, the Equatoria region became the central focus, while nearly allparts of the country became affected by conflict as multiple armed actors and power holders pursued their objectives using violent means. Meanwhile, historically local conflict and competition for resources persist, often with ethnic and inter-communal overtones. Local conflict has become part of a complex and multi-layered system of conflict, evolved over decades of violence, with the potential to further undermine progress in peace efforts at the national level. At their core, Women headed households and their leaders reflect an inability of traditional authorities and the communities they serve to withstand shocks, including the impacts of armed conflict itself, natural disasters and other factors. This is partly a consequence of South Sudan’s pre-independence (2005-2011) state-building efforts – supported and funded by the international community – but never truly consolidated. As an economic crisis unfolded in 2012 due to a shut-down in oil production, existing systems of governance and power broking collapsed and contributed to the outbreaks of re-current violence in 2013 and 2016 respectively.