Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)

This report assesses the extent to which the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is achieving its current strategic objectives and what impact the mission has had on the political and security situation in South Sudan. Throughout its existence, UNMISS has been part of a much broader regional and international constellation of actors working to stabilise the country and encourage the conflict parties to enter into a meaningful peace process. In many cases, UNMISS has played a limited supportive, coordinating, or otherwise indirect role in the overall trajectory of the country; in others, it is a central actor in the eyes of the people of South Sudan. This presents a challenge to any assessment of the Mission, because at most UNMISS can be considered one contributor among many working together to end the civil war and lay the foundations for durable peace. Causality in these settings is difficult to establish. Nevertheless, drawing on the substantial body of data and analysis that is available, and interviews with more than 260 people in South Sudan and the region over several weeks, this study presents a set of evidence-based findings about the impact of the mission and the factors that have enabled and inhibited fulfilment of its mandate.