Beyond participation: Rethinking women’s engagement in South Sudan’s transitional context

Garang, Kuol;Asante, Doris

Abstract

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda is reshaping women’s roles in peace and security. In South Sudan, the WPS Agenda has gained traction by raising awareness and supporting women’s participation in peace processes. However, the implementation of the Agenda and gender-mainstreaming remain superficial. To understand the representation and (missed) opportunities for South Sudanese women in peace processes, we used purposive sampling to select eight peace agreements from 1972 to 2025. Using critical discourse theory, we analysed these agreements to deconstruct language, reveal inequalities, and identify opportunities. We argue that peace agreements developed after the adoption of South Sudan’s WPS National Action Plan (NAP) in 2015 would contain greater references to and opportunities for women. Our findings reveal that despite the increased inclusion of women after the WPS NAP, peace agreements continue to reinforce patriarchal values and power imbalances. This underscores the urgent need to implement the WPS Agenda and for women’s groups and civil society actors to leverage WPS NAPs as advocacy tools for gender-mainstreaming in future peace agreements. Aligning discourses in future agreements with the WPS NAP would contribute to ensuring women’s meaningful contribution and supporting the achievement of sustainable peace.

Journal

African Security Review

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African Security Review

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ISBN/ISSN

2154-0128

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Publisher

Taylor & Francis

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DOI

10.1080/10246029.2026.2625469