The Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), signed in 2018, was envisioned as a historic milestone in transforming ceasefire commitments into a durable political and institutional compact. It promised to unify national security forces, entrench democratic governance, draft a permanent constitution, and lay the foundations for inclusive elections and sustainable development. Yet, more than half a decade later, the optimism that accompanied the accord’s signing has steadily eroded. Implementation delays, political distrust, and entrenched militarization have turned a promising blueprint into a fragile process.
This persistent gap between agreement on paper and peace in practice underscores a hard truth: peace agreements are only as enduring as the political will, institutional strength, and social cohesion that sustain them. Evidence from the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC), humanitarian assessments, and independent media investigations indicates that incomplete implementation, selective justice, and weak accountability continue to trap South Sudan in cyclical fragility. For genuine peace to take root, implementation must move from symbolic gestures to structural transformation.
Globally, it has been described that most people have failed to understand the meaning of implementation, and this is where it falters in terms of the implementation of the signed agreements in South Sudan since 2018. Implementation is not a single event; it is an evolving process of institution-building, trust restoration, and political compromise. In South Sudan, this encompasses the cantonment and integration of rival forces, credible disarmament and demobilization (DDR), constitutional review, establishment of judicial and oversight bodies, and delivery of economic reforms that render peace meaningful to citizens.
Yet, RJMEC’s quarterly reports reveal consistent inertia. Key benchmarks such as the unification of the national army, operationalization of transitional justice institutions, and completion of the permanent constitution remain unfulfilled. Timelines have been extended repeatedly, while political elites trade compliance for leverage rather than for national reform. These are not administrative oversights; they are the structural anchors of recurrent instability.
When peace implementation stalls, governance paralysis follows. Ministries lack functionality, local governments remain under-resourced, and political patronage often overrides meritocracy. The result is a governance vacuum easily exploited by spoilers and armed factions seeking relevance in a fractured political economy.
In addition, the human consequences of incomplete implementation of the peace agreement have indeed led to the fragmentation of the institutions that has led to formation of factions that has denied actual implementation of the peace agreement within the country due to accessibility, insecurity and also the delayed integration of the rival armies.
The consequences of non-implementation are neither abstract nor distant. They are daily realities for millions. Insecurity persists in the Greater Upper Nile and Equatoria regions, with localized violence displacing families and disrupting agricultural production. According to OCHA (2024), nearly 7.1 million South Sudanese remain food-insecure, while over 2 million are internally displaced. These humanitarian indicators reflect not only climatic shocks but also institutional fragility and political neglect.
When peace dividends such as safety, access to justice, or basic services fail to materialize, public trust in the process collapses. Communities revert to local militias for protection, women face heightened risks of gender-based violence, and youth lose faith in peaceful participation. The promise of peace becomes a privilege of the elite rather than a lived reality for citizens. As the World Bank (2023) notes, regions with incomplete force integration and weak governance report the highest displacement rates and humanitarian needs.
Moreover, politics, justice, and the crisis of accountability in South Sudan have led to complexities in the implementation of the peace agreements, to dynamic occurrences in the waves of activities taking place in the country, such as the ongoing proceedings/hearings of the Dr. Riek Machar case at the high court in Juba, South Sudan.
Sustainable peace depends not merely on security arrangements but also on the credibility of justice and political accountability. However, the selective application of justice where political rivals are prosecuted while allies enjoy impunity has undermined the legitimacy of state institutions. Recent arrests and prosecutions of opposition leaders, viewed through partisan lenses, risk eroding confidence in judicial independence.
For implementation to inspire reconciliation rather than resentment, justice must be impartial, transparent, and victim-centred. The African Union Commission of Inquiry (AUCISS) emphasized that transitional justice in South Sudan must integrate truth-telling, reparations, and institutional reforms, not merely prosecutions. Where accountability is politicized, actors have incentives to rearm, seeking negotiation leverage rather than rule-based resolution. True implementation thus requires political courage to submit to the rule of law, even when it restrains the powerful.
In relation to the Security Paradox, Militarization versus Reform, this has impeded the implementation of the peace agreement that was signed in 2018 to accelerate the peace process and its implementation within South Sudan as a country.
Perhaps the most contentious pillar of the R-ARCSS is security-sector transformation. The integration of formerly warring forces into a unified national army was intended to consolidate peace; instead, it has deepened divisions. Partial cantonment, poor logistics, and inadequate funding have left thousands of combatants in limbo. Command structures remain contested, with loyalty often aligned along ethnic or factional lines rather than national allegiance.
This fragmentation perpetuates insecurity and weakens civilian authority. In some regions, the continued presence of parallel command structures has re-ignited communal violence. The Small Arms Survey (2024) highlights that over 60% of reported local clashes are linked to unresolved command hierarchies and arms proliferation. The paradox is evident: an agreement intended to demilitarize politics has instead been implemented through militarized logic.
To reverse this, South Sudan needs a holistic DDR strategy anchored in economic reintegration, community reconciliation, and livelihood support. Security reform must go beyond uniforms and ranks which must rebuild the social contract between armed actors and civilians.
In further lamination of Governance, Inclusion, and the Perils of Elite Bargains could have propelled the implementation of the peace agreement as highlighted above. MoresoPeace agreements negotiated among elites often exclude the very communities they claim to represent. South Sudan’s governance architecture remains heavily centralized, with limited space for civic participation or local accountability. Women, youth, and persons with disabilities, despite rhetorical commitments, remain underrepresented in transitional institutions.
The UNDP (2023) stresses that inclusive governance is not an act of charity but a structural necessity for stability. Where citizens participate in decision-making, peace gains become self-sustaining. Conversely, the absence of inclusion reproduces the exclusionary politics that ignited the civil war.
Local governance reforms such as fiscal decentralization, equitable resource sharing, and empowerment of county councils can turn the peace agreement into a lived experience: rehabilitated roads, functioning clinics, responsive policing, and participatory budgeting. Implementation must therefore move beyond Juba’s political elite and root itself in communities. Peace that is not felt locally cannot endure nationally.
Furthermore, international support and the question of ownership have been one of the great dilemmas that have caused and led to the delay in the implementation of the peace agreement that was about to be reached before the house arrest of Dr. Riek Machar after the Nasir Saga.
External partners have played indispensable roles in IGAD’s mediation, UNMISS’s protection efforts, and donor financing have kept the peace process afloat. However, donor fragmentation and conditionality fatigue have weakened coherence. Implementation requires sustained funding, technical expertise, and political backing. Yet, without local ownership, international assistance risks becoming an exercise in dependency.
As IGAD (2024) noted, aligning donor interventions with nationally defined milestones is essential. Sequenced support linking aid to measurable outcomes in governance, DDR, and economic reform that can generate momentum. Capacity-building, when domestically led, transforms external aid from temporary relief into structural resilience.
Moreover, the description of peace agreements in South Sudan has created several pathways forward, which could have enabled peace agreements to practice how it has manifested from symbolism to substance, henceforth showing the recurring conflicts within the country as it had been stipulated in the above lamentation.
In addition, it is important to note that for South Sudan to translate peace into progress, three imperatives stand out: institutional sequencing and measurable benchmarks need to be enhanced in forms of reforms which must be phased logically in terms of security unification before elections, constitutional review before decentralization, and tied to verifiable milestones. Regular publication of RJMEC performance data can strengthen transparency and public accountability, the need for impartial justice and reconciliation, which will be functional through the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, the Commission on Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, and the Compensation and Reparations Authority must be operationalized simultaneously. Justice should serve as a bridge to healing, not a weapon of political exclusion. Investing in Local Capacity and Human Development, therefore, it is worth highlighting that peace is sustained by schools that open, markets that function, and health centers that deliver. Strengthening local governments, women’s cooperatives, and youth-led organizations embeds peace in everyday life.
In conclusion, the implementation of peace agreements has been the test of political maturity for several political actors internationally; however, in the case of South Sudan, it has been a test of being part of the agreement in order to benefit specific members out of it. A peace agreement is a promise; implementation is its proof. The durability of South Sudan’s peace depends not on signatures but on systems, on the willingness of leaders to subordinate personal power to institutional authority.
Implementation is inherently political because it redistributes privilege and imposes accountability. It demands that those who once ruled by decree now govern by consensus; that security chiefs accept civilian oversight; and that national resources serve citizens, not factions. This is the test of South Sudan’s political maturity.
For a nation scarred by decades of conflict and deprivation, implementation is not a technical exercise; it is the act of state-building itself. It is how legitimacy is restored, trust rebuilt, and hope renewed. The time has come for South Sudan to move from negotiated peace to practiced peace from rhetoric to results. Only through implementation, transparent and inclusive, can the country reclaim its promise as Africa’s youngest nation and finally deliver the peace its people have long deserved.
The writer, Mogga Loyo, is a social researcher and peace advocate. He can be reached via mogtomloyo@yahoo.co.uk.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.