The Comfort of Denial: External Assistance in Southern Sudan

Aid organizations profess universalist objectives – such as humanitarian principles and human rights – whilst operating in areas in which these objectives cannot be fulfilled. How do they deal with the disparity between the claims they make and what actually happens, how are parts of the story covered up, and what do the stated objectives achieve? This article argues that denial – at a personal, organizational and institutional level – is crucial for sustaining assistance, and is facilitated by the language of rights and principles. Drawing on research from southern Sudan, I explore how aid organizations construct an official version of events that fabricates clarity whilst maintaining a degree of tactical confusion. This establishes a political morality, a seemingly ethical position that has political and psychological returns

The State of Peacebuilding in Africa: Lessons Learned for Policymakers and Practitioners

The birth year of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), 1963, is often considered Africa's year of independence. But political freedom did not mean freedom from the repression and violence which had characterized the colonial period. Wars and conflicts have scarred the continent since independence. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, they became more complex and widespread. And so, too, did the international efforts to restore and (re) build peace in Africa. Countries worst affected by violence and conflict included Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan/South Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali, and Libya. In recent years, the quest for sustainable peace in Africa has taken on a new urgency, as instability and insecurity continue to negatively impact the lives of millions of Africans and hinder the continent's economic growth and development. This book joins the quest for peace by examining 30 years of peacebuilding in Africa, highlighting key lessons learned and offering some recommendations for making peace stick