[{"bbox": [84, 106, 1144, 158], "category": "Text", "text": "consensus on the interdependence of sector development efforts. An integrated approach is needed to support the country in building up its social contract."}, {"bbox": [84, 171, 1145, 251], "category": "Text", "text": "The Team Europe Initiative will use all available opportunities to promote the values of democracy and good governance, human rights, IHL and gender equality in South Sudan. These values must be consistently mainstreamed into EU's political, development and humanitarian engagement, and they also require direct actions."}, {"bbox": [84, 263, 1145, 369], "category": "Text", "text": "The EU and EU Member States will coordinate their interventions during the course of implementation of the action, and they will pool resources for a total amount of EUR 42 000 000 to the objective \"facilitate peace and reconciliation\" output 1.2 (EU contribution for EUR 15 000 000, EU Member States' contribution for EUR 27 000 000) in an intervention targeting conflict zones for resilience, social cohesion and conflict reduction."}, {"bbox": [72, 412, 308, 442], "category": "Section-header", "text": "# 2 RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [72, 473, 220, 499], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [84, 530, 798, 557], "category": "Text", "text": "South Sudan ranks globally amongst the top 3 most fragile states in the world."}, {"bbox": [84, 568, 1145, 674], "category": "Text", "text": "South Sudan has seen pervasive cycles of violence for the last 5 decades at least. The struggle against the central Sudanese Government and then, after the 2011 independence, two cycles of national civil war (2013-2014 and 2016-2017). At least four layers of intertwining conflicts play out in South Sudan: (i) regional and international level; (ii) national level; (iii) competition among subnational elites; (iv) local community-level conflicts."}, {"bbox": [84, 687, 1145, 979], "category": "Text", "text": "Leadership and control of an armed group has been a proven, and perhaps the most reliable way of acquiring resources and guaranteeing a stake in the political process at all levels. In addition, state structures which would normally facilitate dialogue, mediation and enforce the rule of law are extremely weak, lacking resources and capacity to carry out their mandates. The laws upholding women's rights are not enforced and sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) stands at extremely high levels. Rates of violence against women and girls, sometimes used as a weapon of war, are double the global average and among the highest in the world. Yet, the majority of these incidents go underreported, due to fear of stigma and limited availability of lifesaving response services to survivors. The state is, in practice, controlled by a predominantly male political-military patronage network which means that the institutions of the state are subject to intense securitization. As a result, South Sudanese society is highly militarized. Other root causes of conflict in South Sudan include chronic underdevelopment and widespread poverty, violations of human rights and IHL, gender inequality and widespread corruption."}, {"bbox": [84, 1018, 1145, 1203], "category": "Text", "text": "Decades of war and conflict have created massive social and economic instability, caused trauma, and entrenched grievances. Conflict, displacement, the centralisation of investment and powers, and wartime destruction of social services and industry have left many communities impoverished. Civilians, in particular the most vulnerable, bear the brunt of widespread subnational conflicts and violence. Revenge killings, torture, abduction of women and children, forced displacement, property looting and burning, starvation, rape and other forms of sexual and gender based valance are some of the human rights violations that have been documented, including in reports of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan."}, {"bbox": [84, 1216, 1145, 1269], "category": "Text", "text": "The civil war 2013 - 2015 caused the displacement of an estimated 1/3rd of the population (2.27 million South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries and 1.71 million internally displaced persons (IDP))³."}, {"bbox": [84, 1281, 888, 1308], "category": "Text", "text": "State presence is very limited in large parts of South Sudan. The social contract is weak."}, {"bbox": [84, 1320, 1145, 1373], "category": "Text", "text": "There is therefore a continued need for **conflict reduction and reconciliation mechanisms**. Furthermore, the country must appropriate **human rights, and international humanitarian law requirements**."}, {"bbox": [84, 1386, 1145, 1466], "category": "Text", "text": "Conflict in South Sudan is multi-layered and there are complex interactions between conflicts occurring in different levels. Therefore, there is a need to take a broader approach to conflict that addresses its political, economic, social and cultural root causes as identified in the conflict analysis screening undertaken by EU."}, {"bbox": [84, 1478, 1145, 1559], "category": "Text", "text": "At national level, the conflicting parties - signed in September 2018 the **Revitalised Agreement on the resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS)**. The implementation of the peace agreement is slow but still provides the only regionally -backed and internationally -supported roadmap towards peace."}, {"bbox": [72, 1638, 538, 1663], "category": "Footnote", "text": "³ https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/south-sudan/"}, {"bbox": [1051, 1663, 1156, 1687], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 21"}]