Not long ago Sierra Leone and Sudan experienced violent civil wars and both situations were perceived by the UN to constitute a threat to international peace and security. Because of this, the UN deployed two different peace operations, UNAMSIL and UNMIS, which have had various success regarding Sierra Leone and Sudan’s current level of peace. This thesis aims to investigate if the degree of local ownership during a UN peace operation matters for a country's level of sustainable peace, and does so by a comparative case study between the two countries. Our theoretical framework consists of Timothy Donais, who claims that a peace process cannot be sustainable without local ownership, and John Paul Lederach’s peacebuilding pyramid and his different divisions of the society. By analyzing implemented projects by UNAMSIL and UNMIS, the essay concludes that local ownership did play a part for the current level of peace in both countries
