Kenya deserves thanks, first. In a region where too many actors have prolonged South Sudan’s war by feeding it with weapons, financing, political cover, and sometimes force, Kenya has largely invested in the opposite direction: convening, hosting, persuading. The fact that the Security Council has had to impose an arms embargo and repeatedly task expert monitoring of arms flows tells you something sobering about the wider ecosystem around South Sudan’s violence. That is the regional backdrop in which Kenya has chosen, again, to spend diplomatic capital on peace.
That is also why the new Tumaini “proposed framework”, as drafted and circulated in late January, lands with an awkward thud. Kenya has a mediation pedigree and the diplomatic capacity to know the difference between a statement of virtue and a design for success and peace. So, it is an informed surprise, and a serious one, that Kenya would associate its name, and the credibility it carries, with a three-page framework whose core architecture is thin where South Sudan’s war and peace politics are thick.
The puzzle is not why Kenya wants peace in South Sudan. The puzzle is why this problematic approach, why this framework and why in this moment.
The framework sets an ambitious tempo: a four-week process, starting 9 February 2026, to produce a “South Sudan National Consensus Charter for Peace and Democracy”. It also describes the process as time-bound consensus-building, premised on the recognition that South Sudanese leaders “are fully aware” of both the country’s challenges and the solutions required to resolve them. It places a primary focus on cessation of hostilities, civilian protection, humanitarian assistance, trust-building, and the mechanics of elections. In principle, that agenda reads like a responsible response to a country trapped in cycles of transition and relapse. Even the language of the accompanying public messaging is hard to quarrel with: “inclusive and non-hierarchical”, “people-centred”, “collective problem-solving”, a moral call to put citizens’ dignity ahead of factional gain.
Disappointedly though, on its face, the framework reads less like a neutral, independently drafted mediation document and more like a text produced in Juba, with the tone, structure, and policy sequencing neatly aligned with recent public utterances of the regime in Juba. Some of its language, word for word, in some cases exact phrasing and conceptual scaffolding, are lifted from the website of the Ministry of Justice and constitutional Affairs of South Sudan and the R-ARCSS. That is precisely why Kenya’s public association with it is surprising; it appears to confer external legitimacy on what looks, in substance and voice, like a Government of South Sudan-authored position paper presented under a new initiative label.
Another red flag is the framework’s posture as a pre-cooked text delivered to select parties with minimal consultation, coupled with an implausible timetable, roughly a week to react, a week to engage, and barely four weeks to “resolve all problems” before returning to Juba to prepare elections. This is deadline-driven compression substitutes speed for feasibility and legitimacy. It strips parties of meaningful voice, weakens buy-in, and turns negotiations into a rushed compliance exercise rather than a structured problem-solving process. Predictably, it incentivises tactical obstruction, encourages superficial paper compromises that unravel on implementation, and marginalises non-armed constituencies whose inclusion is essential for durable, credible elections. The result is a high-risk pathway to an agreement that may be signed quickly, but lacks the consultation depth, sequencing realism, and ownership needed to hold under the pressure of security arrangements, electoral preparations, and constitutional questions.
And yet, as someone who has watched peace processes in South Sudan for long enough to develop scars rather than slogans, I am genuinely surprised Kenya has allowed its name, and by extension its mediation pedigree, to be attached to this framework as currently drafted and presented. Not because the ambition is wrong, but because the engineering is thin where the load will be heavy.
The framework appears purpose-built to sideline the R-ARCSS and create a shortcut to elections. Kenya is called upon to lend legitimacy to these government efforts, which have so far lacked public acceptability. The intention is to then cast those who oppose the resultant ‘national consensus’ as anti-national consensus actors.
Kenya is not naïve about South Sudan. It knows that the problem has never been a shortage of awareness. There has been a surplus of incentives to delay, defect, and outsource the costs onto civilians. That is precisely why Kenya’s endorsement cannot be a mere gesture. It becomes part collateral, part cover. It raises hopes quickly, and if the process fails, it hardens cynicism for years. Kenya knows, better than most, that in protracted conflicts the difference between a photo-op and a pathway is rarely goodwill. It is process design. It is leverage. It is credibility. It is the capacity to turn signatures into behaviour.
To be fair, the framework does get some things right.
First, it acknowledges “persistent challenges and outstanding implementation gaps” under the 2018 R-ARCSS, and frames Tumaini as a recalibration in response to those implementation failures rather than a denial that they exist. Second, it centres on immediate, morally urgent files. Cessation of hostilities, civilian protection, stabilisation, humanitarian assistance, trust-building, and credible elections are not peripheral concerns. They are the difference between families sleeping and families fleeing. The accompanying press statement leans into that, promising an approach that moves away from adversarial posturing and zero-sum bargaining toward collective problem-solving and national ownership. Third, it gestures toward inclusion by naming categories beyond political parties: women leaders, faith leaders, traditional leaders, and civil society. Those are not trivial strengths. But they are not sufficient. In South Sudan, process design is policy. The structure is the strategy. And on that score, the framework’s weaknesses are not cosmetic. They are structural.
A framework heavy on virtue, light on architecture
Let’s start with what the documents say, because critique without textual anchors is just opinion dressed up as analysis.
The framework establishes a compressed timetable and a broad outcome: four weeks to produce a national charter. It frames the initiative as a paradigm shift away from “adversarial posturing and zero-sum negotiations” toward non-hierarchical “problem-solving”. It also makes design choices that should set off alarms for any serious mediator.
The first is the convening posture. The text states that H.E President William Samoei Ruto of Kenya will serve as “Principal Facilitator”, and will work “closely” with Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan, a principal party to the conflict, to ensure “sovereign ownership, national legitimacy, and effective political anchoring”. That sentence is doing too much harm for too little gain. “National ownership” matters, but in mediation it is paired with impartiality, credibility, and a process that parties perceive as fair. Impartiality is a fundamental requirement precisely because perception of bias can collapse meaningful engagement. Coordination with an incumbent head of state can be necessary. Framing that coordination as “political anchoring” risks signalling that the process’s centre of gravity is the government’s comfort, not the parties’ confidence. That undermines the very consent the process needs to function, especially with hold-out groups who believe regional mediation is convened at the government’s behest to deliver predetermined outcomes, and that those who dissent are then punished by the region.
A facilitator can respect sovereignty without being visibly tethered to one conflict party’s “political anchoring”. In a high-distrust environment, “working closely” with the incumbent reads less like ownership and more like alignment. Even if Kenya’s intent is scrupulously fair, perception becomes reality at the table. Consent does not just mean parties show up. Consent means they believe the process is not structurally rigged against them, so they invest political capital in it rather than treating it as theatre.
A persistent design flaw in past South Sudan peace talks is a “double-hatting” distortion: the Government of South Sudan is treated both as a principal conflict party and as a privileged member of Heads-of-State forum, which often sets direction by consensus. That structure may work for interstate coordination, but in an intrastate war, it effectively embeds a veto player inside the convening authority, allowing the Government to influence agenda-setting, sequencing, and enforcement parameters while other parties are relegated to a lower-status tier. Kenya cannot repeat this failed strategy and expect a different outcome. The challenges, therefore, facing Kenya on this score are principled as well as practical: how to design a process that manages conflicts of interest through clear separation of roles, independent chairing, transparent decision rules, and guaranteed participation rights for all conflict parties.
The second is the theoretical underpinning of the Framework. The framework is “premised” on the belief that South Sudanese leaders already know both the challenges and the solutions. In mediation practice, knowledge is rarely the scarcest commodity. The framework’s core assumption is simply wrong for mediation in a war economy where leaders may indeed understand what the country needs, but that is not the binding constraint. The binding constraint is whether the political and military marketplace makes it rational to do it. Saying we are “premised” on leaders’ awareness is like building a bridge premised on gravity agreeing to take the afternoon off. Peace processes fail less often because people lack ideas, and more often because agreements lack guarantees.
Third, on inclusivity, the press messaging talks about equal stakeholders and a non-hierarchical approach. The framework lists categories of participants, including women leaders, faith leaders, traditional leaders and civil society. That is commendable, as far as it goes. But inclusivity operates through mechanisms. The texts, at least as publicly described, do not specify who selects these constituencies, what decision rights they have, how they are protected from intimidation, or how their participation is prevented from becoming decorative. “Non-hierarchical” language does not eliminate hierarchy in real life. In fact, in elite-driven wars, it can hide it.
Fourth, the issue of sequencing. The framework does not organise itself around peace as the enabling condition. It organises itself around elections. It places “pre-election priorities” first, including an immediate cessation of hostilities, civilian protection, humanitarian assistance, trust measures, alignment with the Transitional Constitution, and even “decisions on pre-election power-sharing”. Meanwhile, it pushes the hardest files into the “post-election” basket: permanent constitution-making, transitional justice, security sector transformation, unification of forces, and DDR. In other words, the framework treats elections as the engine that will pull the rest of the settlement into place. That is precisely South Sudan’s most expensive political habit: elections as horizon, not peace as foundation.
Sequencing is incentive design. You do not sequence by “importance,” you sequence by dependencies and by credible commitment constraints. Ceasefires and political roadmaps hold only when monitoring and verification are in place, and violations have predictable consequences. Similarly, security sector moves and DDR cannot be treated as post-election housekeeping if the purpose of the transition is to create a non-coercive political marketplace. If elections are framed as imminent while the security architecture that should protect voters remains unfinished, parties tend to treat voting as a contest to be managed, not a choice to be respected.
In other words, the framework defers precisely the files that determine whether elections can be credible, safe, and contestable to the post-election phase. In South Sudan, elections are not the priority; peace and security are, because a rushed vote can end one chapter of the conflict only to inaugurate a deadlier phase fought over disputed outcomes, captured institutions, and armed veto power, so elections must come only after security is credible and inclusive institutions actually function.
The UN’s DDR–SSR guidance stresses the tight coupling between transitional security arrangements and the broader governance trajectory, including elections, because sequencing them wrong can turn the ballot into a contest conducted under armed veto. And where transitional justice, DDR, and SSR are treated as separate silos, you often get “paper reform” plus continued coercion, because each pillar depends on the others to change behaviour, not just institutions. This sequencing affects effective implementation design.
Implementation is where Tumaini framework, as drafted, becomes dangerously under-specified. The framework repeatedly invokes “effective implementation”, including a line that the initiative “will coordinate” with IGAD, with the support of international partners, for regional coherence and effective implementation. But it does not define what “effective implementation” means in operational terms. There are no stated benchmarks, no verification modality, no dispute-resolution protocol, no compliance consequences, and no guaranteed resourcing plan. While most of these elements could be negotiated among the parties, a clear signal from the facilitators that they matter is the bare minimum, especially if the entire package is expected to be addressed within four weeks. In a political economy that has normalised extensions and delays, vagueness is shelter.
This omission is striking because Tumaini’s own earlier drafting showed a more structural instinct. In December 2024, mediators circulated a draft framework for Tumaini complement to R-ARCSS that explicitly aimed to fill gaps, strengthen implementation institutions, establish new oversight structures, harmonise divergences, and transition the complement to IGAD stewardship, with external guarantors supporting monitoring and oversight. Whether or not one agreed with that design, it at least recognised the central challenge: implementation architecture.
Fifthly, forum coherence. The South Sudan peace ecosystem has one important existing risk: parallel or multiple tracks, mandate creep, and forum-shopping. The framework gestures at coherence but does not answer the question that will decide Tumaini’s fate: is this charter an annexe to the existing agreement, an amendment, or an alternative? In the previous rounds of Tumaini, it was insisted that Tumaini should not negotiate a parallel deal or replace the existing agreement but rather accommodate hold-out reservations within it. If that is still the intent, the framework should say so plainly and specify the legal and institutional pathway by which the charter is integrated.
This is the crux: the framework reads more like a destination and less like a vehicle.
A salvage plan that is still politically doable
None of this is an argument against Kenya’s role. It is an argument for Kenya to lead like Kenya.
Kenya’s signature matters because it creates expectations. It confers legitimacy. It creates diplomatic shelter. When Kenya convenes, the world assumes the process is being handled with professional seriousness, with coherence across the ecosystem. That is precisely why a weak framework is risky. It raises hopes fast, then turns disappointment into cynicism. It creates, once again, a politics of “perpetual transitions”, which even Tumaini’s own messaging says it wants to end.
And failure will not look like a seminar that ends early. Failure will look like this: talks start, a ceasefire is declared, atrocities dip in one place and rise in another, verification is contested, spoilers exploit ambiguity, elections remain a moving target, and civilians are asked to applaud the process while paying the price in death, destruction of livelihood, despair, displacement, hunger, and fear.
So, what should change, concretely, if Tumaini is to avoid becoming another “talks-about-talks” loop?
Firstly, before Kenya convenes South Sudan’s actors, it must make one strategic choice explicit, then defend it in writing. Are the talks meant to repair the existing peace architecture, or to replace it with a new deal. The process must not produce yet another document for an already crowded “peace library”.
The repair option has real advantages. It preserves legal continuity and avoids the classic trap of forum-shopping, where parties hop tracks until they find the weakest forum. It also allows Kenya to improve on and leverage existing implementation bodies and verification routines rather than inventing new ones from scratch. The downside is political, not technical: R-ARCSS fatigue is real, some actors have built entire bargaining identities around rejecting it, and a “fix” can look like refurbishing a house built on crumbling sand. A new agreement can reset legitimacy, widen buy-in to include hold-outs, and update assumptions that no longer match the battlefield or the political marketplace. But a new agreement carries real costs in South Sudan’s context: it resets compliance to zero, stretches donor patience and resources, rewards renegotiation over delivery, incentivises splintering into new movements, and reopens enforcement as a bargaining chip rather than a trigger.
Secondly, Kenya also needs to insulate itself from the perception and the reality of capture, while increasing the process’s legitimacy through shared facilitation. Kenya should bring onboard from the start other actors as co-facilitators because this will assist pool legitimacy, align leverage, reduce the risk that other regional players become spoilers and that one convener becomes the story. A workable option is tripartite facilitation anchored in IGAD, the African Union, and the United Nations, with Kenya as the operational chair but not the lone political face. Another credible model is to activate a heads-of-state political “guarantor committee” using the AU C5 for South Sudan, which is explicitly mandated to support IGAD’s mediation and has identifiable political weight across Africa’s regions. Shared facilitation does two things Kenya should want: it spreads reputational risk, and it makes enforcement more believable because guarantors are inside the room while commitments are being drafted, not invited afterwards to bless a text they did not shape.
Finally, participation must be widened without turning the table into a crowd scene. The solution is one process with multiple access points, rather than a single table. Expand participation to all meaningful political actors, including those outside Juba and those who cannot make it to Kenya for genuine security concerns, then use methods that meet them where they can speak without intimidation. That can mean structured “listening and bargaining” missions in capitals where hold-outs are comfortable, tightly scripted shuttle diplomacy, and secure virtual sessions for diaspora and political movements who cannot travel safely. Technology matters here. Remote engagement can expand access, but only if Kenya ensures inputs from outside the main room are answered in a single text rather than politely “received.”
Widening participation is not credible if the agenda is pre-cooked. If Kenya truly wants buy-in from non-signatories and excluded constituencies, it must be willing to open the whole of R-ARCSS to renegotiation, not only its timelines and technical annexes. That is the only way to confront the agreement’s structural defects, including its incentive architecture, elite power-sharing logic, and weak enforcement design, instead of asking new actors to simply endorse old compromises they never owned. It also creates a legitimate entry point for fresh ideas from non-signatories.
Net-net: if Kenya wants Tumaini to be a pathway rather than another artefact, it should (1) decide “repair vs replace,” then publish the hierarchy rule, (2) sequence by dependencies and credible-commitment constraints, not by political convenience, (3) share facilitation to de-risk perception and strengthen guarantees, and (4) expand participation through smart process engineering, including geographic outreach and secure tech-enabled engagement. Coherence first. Sequencing second. Guarantees third. Inclusion by design, not by adjectives.
The writer, Dr. Remember Miamingi, is a South Sudanese expert in governance and human rights, as well as a political commentator. He can be contacted via email at remember.miamingi@gmail.com
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.