The people of Jonglei State share a common history together with richly diverse traditions and interests. At the same time, they have suffered the hardships of various cycles of conflict, which have disrupted life in their communities over a long period. At the end of 2011, within months of the country’s independence, incidents of violent conflict within the state had sent alarm bells ringing not only nationally, but also internationally. This has led to an intensive mobilization of efforts to identify and address the causes of these conflicts, with a series of nationally and locally led peace and developmental initiatives, such as the ongoing Presidential Committee for Community, Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance in Jonglei State, and the Sudan Council of Churches’ “People to people” peacemaking approach.
The picture which has emerged is that Jonglei State needs greater attention and levels of effort to tackle the various issues which have contributed to outbreaks of violent conflict. In this spirit, Conflict Dynamics commenced in May 2012 an initiative working with the national and state governments and the people of Jonglei State which aims to assist in identifying causes of conflict, and opportunities for peacebuilding, which relate to governance. The focus of this initiative mirrors Conflict Dynamics’ work on reconciliation – or accommodation – of political interests as a key dimension of governance and peacebuilding at the national level in South Sudan, as explored in the recent Briefing Paper entitled “Building the House of Governance: Political accommodation in South Sudan” (May 2012). In focusing on Jonglei State, the aim is to support and complement the efforts and successes of the recent Jonglei Peace Process, identifying complementary actions which the government and people of the state can take as part of their collaborative efforts to build sustainable peace.
The Discussion Note presents an approach designed to support the people of Jonglei in developing frameworks and tools for building a “house of governance” that gives every citizen a place and ensures equitable treatment of communities, however remote and vulnerable. This approach focusses on political accommodation of the people of Jonglei’s diverse interests. The essence of political accommodation is people working together to reconcile each other’s political interests in situations where consensus is difficult to find, but not completely absent. As used here, political accommodation does not in any way mean appeasement or “buying off” opponents through political largesse. Rather, political accommodation builds a “house of governance” that gives everyone a fair opportunity to have a voice and reconcile their different interests.
