Effeects of regional armed conflict on the international humanitarian services (The case study of South Sudan)
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Date
2026-05-11
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NAKIMBUGWE VICTORIA
Abstract
Following the outbreak of a violent civil war in 2013, South Sudan has become one of the world's most dangerous places for humanitarian aid workers. In this study, we assess the dramatic effects of regional armed conflict on the effectiveness of international humanitarian assistance, exploring how violence, politics and bureaucratic battles affect the lives of more than 2.7 million refugees and internally displaced people. Employing a mixed-method approach, the study leverages quantitative methods to understand secondary data on incidents, complemented by qualitative data from 40 semi-structured interviews with humanitarian workers, government actors, and civilians. The analysis shows a strong negative association (r = -0.78) between intensity of conflict and delivery of services. Even amid physical infrastructure and medically targeted violence, the study reveals a "performance of care" in which short, poorly budgeted
visits are used to meet donor reporting obligations, but do not treat the underlying causes of vulnerability. At the heart of the study is the finding that access is not simply defined by violence but is highly politicized. Whilst high-intensity violence leads to direct military bans, complexity and "post-conflict" sees "bureaucratic warfare" and state actors strategically using administrative control and xiii taxation to exert power and extort resources. Moreover, the study unravels a monolithic pretension of the state, even as it is a fragmented conglomerate of competing "fiefdoms" of military officers and political
appointees who profit from humanitarian aid. This work offers a conclusion that humanitarian effectiveness in South Sudan is systematically flawed. It is the result of a political economy in which both state and non-state actors have adapted to the short-term
heroic, technical aid system without enhancing performance. The conclusions are a wake-up call to policymakers and international actors to move away from reductionist policies and implement conflict-sensitive policies that acknowledge the interactive, political nature of aid in South
Sudan.
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Undergraduate