UNDP Press conference on South Sudan 13 November 2020

So thank you to all of you for joining us today for this refer that will give you another view of the process and outcomes of the South Sudan National dialogue that is ending today.

And we're very lucky to have with U.S.

ambassador Dr Francis Madding Deng, National Dialogue Steering Committee leadership team.

He will start and provide you with another view of the national dialogue.

We're also happy to have Camille Kamaluddin, our resident representative UNDP South Sudan.

We will present from AUNDP perspective why the dialogue matters and what, what can be expected as next steps.

We'll keep 10 to 15 minutes for the Q&A.

And you can advertise your question in the in the chat box as you do usually, or you can raise your hand and we will end YouTube.

Thank you so much for Enrico for helping us on on the logistic Doctor Francis Madding Deng, the the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to share with you our observations of the work of the national dialogue.

I'll be very brief so that we can get some questions from you.

The few points I'd make is to begin with, here's the progress we have made from the initial scepticism about the process.

People were either opposed or welcoming but wondering whether it would lead anywhere.

And I think we have seen tremendous progress from scepticism to support to the point where sometimes we worry that there's probably too much being expected of the national dialogue.

And I think 1 aspect of this move has been the extent to which national dialogue has opened the field for freedom of speech.

People have spoken in a manner that is absolutely surprising, absolute candour, openness, transparency and nobody has been harassed, intimidated or arrested.

I also think that the move from the grass roots to the regional level and now to the national level has also demonstrated the extent to which with the process of moving from local to national level, the value of the national dialogue has been enhanced and people are seeing it as potentially quite significant in addressing the problems of the country.

So we believe that the value of the national dialogue is now quite visible, but we also believe that it's important not to become complacent.

We quite sometimes worry about the fact that perhaps we have raised expectations very ****, which means that the prospects of implementation have become also very **** stakes.

And again here I am quite encouraged by what we have been hearing in this national conference about the recommendations of the National dialogue being taken to the Parliament and the Parliament acting upon them into making legislation, housing and legislation that will then be passed on to the executive for implementation.

So I have to say that while the critical issue of implementation may be leaving some questions still to be answered, overall the progress has been very encouraging.

And I say again, we are not complacent and we are continuously thinking about what robust mechanism we will leave for the implementation of the recommendations.

And I think I'll stop here and wait for any specific questions to answer.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Camille, I'd like you to add to to what what was said right now and and add UNDP perspective why you think it.

It really makes the the national dialogue makes really a lot of sense in the in the peace process and and maybe if you have those at hand, if you can tell us a bit more about the the number of people who participated, especially young people and woman.

[Other language spoken]

We have our own, about 500 representatives and these people were selected by the grassroots consultations and then again endorsed by the regional consultation, the regional conferences.

We have stakeholders representing different sectors of the community.

We have at least 50% women representation.

I have a colleague here who can correct and verify what I'm saying.

And then we have all sectors, including church, business, civil society, as I said, women.

We have traditional leaders, we have the business interests, we have literally all sectors, agriculturists, farmers, youth represented and we have also a special category of what we call eminent persons who are selected for their own expertise and contribution.

So it's very comprehensive.

But I am glad you mentioned the you made a reference to the peace process.

Initially the National dialogue was supposed to be linked or to be in the framework context of the revitalised peace agreement or peace process.

I've personally been active in both.

Then I am deputy Rapporteur of the National Dialogue, but I've also been involved in the peace process in representing a category of so-called eminent persons.

What I see quite encouraging now, and it was demonstrated very much by what we heard about the peace, about the foreign policy.

We have 4 clusters, there is governance, security, economy, social cohesion and the 5th, which is a cutting, which is cutting across all these sectors is foreign policy.

And yesterday we had a very good demonstration of how the foreign policy of the country that is being developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been connected with the paper we prepared in the National Dialogue on Foreign policy.

And they saw the extent to which they are interconnected and mutually reinforcing.

The same has been said also about security sector, what we did and what the key representatives of the military or overalls security sector are interacting and reinforcing.

[Other language spoken]

Just to echo Dr Francis Deng's point, we see the national dialogue as an important step forward in terms of South Sudan's evolution in the past few years.

Four years ago, South Sudan was in a very different place in terms of the political but also economic and social context.

Immediately coming after the crisis of media 2016 with the national dialogue, there has been some important concessions that are important in terms of South Sudan's moving out of crisis.

[Other language spoken]

And part of these included the fact that the national dialogue, It might, out of South Sudan's own thinking, own desire to start coming around the table and not just stay in the Bush fighting each other and resulting in massive humanitarian and and human disaster.

The dialogue has proceeded and part of what we have done at the beginning was to encourage that initiative and working as an integrated UN, particularly with the United Nations mission in South Sudan, armies and the UNDP and other UNCT colleagues to have to come around and provide support to the to the organisation in terms of bringing best practises, experiences as well as Technical Support they requested by the team.

And we, we we are very proud of the fact that the principles that we laid out, working with them that were laid out at the beginning have been consistently followed, which I believe are responsible for the fruits that are vested today.

[Other language spoken]

It was it was a tough environment in which you have a national dialogue where the president will be the patron or that you have a national dialogue inviting people to talk when they still see some of their leaders or some of their friends or families that are still in detention.

[Other language spoken]

And to the credit of the leaders that at that point it was easy and well, the president was able to reduce himself.

They say, OK, you know, set it free, get a free national dialogue, run it.

I'm no longer going to be the the the patron or and that look, we will release political detainees.

And that was done and it was set free, open and to have people starting to dialogue from the local levels down to the states, to the region and now to the national conference.

It's a new beginning and it's a good beginning in terms of finding new ways of trying to discuss how the society will be constructed and how the peace will eventually be cemented.

And we are seeing these in the kind of issues that are already been discussed in the national conference, the kind of future that the people wanted for themselves.

And from what the people have said, it's very clear that the South Sudan that people have been waiting for can happen.

And it will have to happen with the consistent commitment of the people and the leadership of this country to pursue peace.

People are asking for a more development oriented constitution.

They are asking for a constitution that will guarantee the right and opportunities for massive majority in this country.

The 72% of the population is young and they want the young people to have a place in structuring and in discussing the future that the that the country would, will be will be facing.

So we we see this process as important, but we are not naive and we do know for sure that it would take commitment, consistency of the process going forward, retain the national ownership, retain the independence of thought, of action, of allowing the voices of the people to be had.

That would be extremely important and to also continue to have the package of enabling environment that has been opened up through the national dialogue.

Guarantee freedom of speech, guarantee the right of people to to hear their views, include the majority of the people, majority, all the constituency, all the position, young men, young women, boys and girls.

They need to be heard and to ensure that it does not end with the dialogue.

It has to continue with the robust implementation framework, implementation of process and the support of the United Nations as a family here has been great and I need to really emphasise that in terms of ensuring that we accompany the process, ensuring that it continues to follow the path of successful national, national dialogue.

And I do believe that these processes will will continue.

The Revitalise agreement is a big opportunity and this is going to be a big incentive for the structural reforms that are called for, constitution making election, professionalisation of security and civil services that these will feed into those structural reforms and even eventually we could see imagine the South Sudan that everybody has been waiting for.

Thank you very much.

I should add a couple of points.

1 is the complementarity between the revitalised peace agreement and the national dialogue.

The peace agreement is really a negotiation and agreement between the the warring parties, among the warring parties and, and basically it's a it's a sharing of power positions and all that.

National dialogue has been a very broad based effort that addresses almost all the concerns of the people of South Sudan.

The two questions that were asked was what is what has gone wrong with the country and what is the way out of these problems.

That's one thing.

The other thing is I want to really emphasise the important role played by the international community, particularly UNDP.

We have had a few donors, people who are sceptical to begin with, but whatever we have had, UNDP has been the source of managing our resources as well as providing expertise.

And this is something which KK mentioned, but it is we we should emphasise our appreciation for the role in my patience has played.

[Other language spoken]

Let me ask for what because Francis said the the people of South Sudan have spoken and demanded A credible mechanism body to implement the resolution and outcomes of the national dialogue.

Yeah, the national dialogue went through as we faces grassroots consultation, regular conferences and now the national conference, what is the way forward for the resolutions and the outcomes?

The way forwards the people demanded a body to implement to follow up the implementation of the resolution and the outcomes and also to follow up to follow up the federal system which the people in the in all this process strongly demanded that the South Sudan should have a federal system and also to follow up the convening and the and the management body to to to form a constitutional conference.

The constitutional conference, it would be drawn from the delegates of the national conference and including the women as he mentioned earlier.

Now in this national conference especially we have more than 50% women because we we put each county has three delegates, one must be a woman and youth.

So in the national conference, we have more than 50% women and youth.

And after the constitutional conference, the, the draught, the new draught for the Constitution will be assigned by the president.

And then after that, we will form a constitutional court to protect and interpret the Constitution.

And after that, we need to have oversight body.

We call it oversight council.

And this oversight council is to to, to, to, to to follow up the progress of the implementation of the national of the resolution of the national dialogue and report back to the people through the Parliament.

As because Francis mentioned earlier that the resolution will be taken to the Parliament and will be an active to be to be put in the law.

And also the same time to resolve some, some dispute arising from from the implementation of the of the resolution of the national dialogue.

[Other language spoken]

I see that we've got a question from Catherine Fioncambe Conga who works for France Van Kat and we can you unmute Catherine?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Sarah, and thank you to the guests for being there and their contribution by giving all these very interesting details.

I'd like someone please to be a little bit more precise about the youth of the population.

If I understood well, 72% of the population is young.

[Other language spoken]

That is one thing I would like to know.

And my main question is regarding the situation in neighbour Ethiopia.

With all the efforts that you're making in your country to bring peace, isn't it dangerous, the situation happening in Ethiopia?

Isn't it worrying you like having refugees arriving in your country and then jeopardise all your efforts?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

By the way, on the issue of youth, the 72 or 73% youth, they were very vocal in demanding that they have a representation.

We have in the Constitution, women have at least 25%.

National Dialogue is recommending 35% for women.

The youth are demanding or requesting 20% representation and the National Congress Conference is going to forward their demand for as part of our final recommendations, we will forward the the request of the demand of the of the youth for 20%.

And I think they have been quite happy with the way the conference has responded to their demands on Ethiopia.

You know, we have to see the reaction of South Sudan to the development in Ethiopia in the context of the long support South Sudan has received from Ethiopia ever since our first.

War or liberation struggle from 55 to 72.

And then since we resumed the conflict within the context of IGAT.

So our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken the initiative to send a special delegate or message to Ethiopia to discuss with them ways in which South Sudan can respond to the crisis in Ethiopia and to exchange views on how best we can support them.

Whether it is in terms of receptivity to the refugees, which of course has always been the case.

This region has always been very generous to the flow of refugees from 1 country or another.

But it is more than that.

And recently the region has been moving towards cooperation and dealing with a crisis in the region.

And you know that Ethiopia played an important role in the Sudan in addressing the crisis in Sudan.

It is *********** upon the other neighbours to now be involved in seeing how they can help Ethiopia in addressing the crisis there.

So there's active exchange of views going on on that issue.

Just to add a couple of points, the, the there, there will always be concern when you have a crisis across the border and it's not, and, and this is not an exception.

I think there's a bit of tension and a bit of anxiety and these we have to continue to trap and follow.

And I'm happy to hear that the diplomatic efforts have been stepped up.

At least we'll get some additional information.

But the point for now is to continue to track and ensure that adequate attention is paid to the needs of the people.

The question on the the the cut off point for the for the definition of youth is moved from publication to publication.

The most popular publications have put it between 35 and 40.

[Other language spoken]

But just like the number itself, it's been oscillating between 72 and 74.

I I've got another question from, from a journalist in Denmark that connects to the youth question, but also to the Security question.

He is asking you what is the level of ****** from the Islamic State in South Sudan and how does that connect to the national dialogue?

Number of Islamic State the the the ****** here in South Sudan we are very sensitive about the issue of religion being mixed with the politics of the country, about the issue of the state.

As you know, the conflict between South Sudan and the north that led to independent of the South had to do with the role of religion in the state, the imposition of Sharia, which of course S Sudanese were demanding secularism and the elements in the north were demanding the application of Sharia as the religion of this state.

What we have now in South Sudan is really creating a framework for true representation of religions in a secular but supportive way, so that Islam is being well accommodated as long as it doesn't begin to be perceived as interfering with the politics of the matters of state.

And this issue was raised in the National National Conference with very limited voice from vocal but limited voice from some Muslims that they be accorded a certain percentage in representation.

But there was an overwhelming reaction, including by the Muslim leaders themselves, to say we must maintain strict separation of religion from the state.

And the leadership of South Sudan has assured the Muslims in this country full support for the religion, provided that it does not get into not only extremism but entering into some what is now known as some extreme elements that become almost terroristic.

So we have a clear accommodation of religious diversity with a clear sense of secularism and keeping religion away from politics and issues of state.

Thank you very much.

I don't see any question from the journalist, but let's see, we need we, we're going to conclude any question, journalist nothing.

OK, so maybe why do I'd like to ask 3 of you to conclude very, very briefly, but to give us a sense of what are the next steps?

How do we turn this dialogue into concrete steps?

Well, first of all, I, I just want to reemphasize that I think when national dialogue was initiated by the President, nobody had a clear idea about where it would lead.

It was obviously nice to talk about national dialogue, nobody can object to that.

But what precisely it would mean, I think national dialogue has acquired a life of its own and it has expanded the vision of what it could do.

What we now have is whether the recommendation of national dialogue that are quite comprehensive and even those who were keeping out of the national dialogue are under pressure now to say you better join them because you can't beat it.

It's a train that is accommodating everybody.

So our biggest challenge is, as my colleague Mary mentioned, we are now looking at a robust implementation mechanism that has been proposed.

It's in what encouraged me is not only do we have now a recommendation for a robust implementation mechanism, but even the speaker of the National Assembly said they're waiting for the recommendation to be brought to the Assembly.

They will enact them into law and make the executive implement.

That is very promising.

I think at the same time we are hoping that national dialogue has opened up space so that the principle, the culture of dialogue will continue.

And, and I believe that the government is now reconciled to the fact that people are demanding the freedom to dialogue and therefore I believe that there is no longer any fear about the freedom to speak out and this will be ongoing.

I believe that would be my comment.

Thank you, Doctor Francis 1st, just let me make a smaller.

[Other language spoken]

I think it's going to be here.

1st I have the latest numbers.

The percentage of population below the 8:30 is 72 and below 18 is 51, just to confirm those numbers.

I think South Sudan has done very well to come this far with national dialogue, but they should take it as just the important point at the beginning of the process for the pursuit of permanent peace and and democracy and development in this country.

What has taken them to this point is ability to talk together, to look at differences and to find common ground.

That is important.

It is talking to the people, listening to them, giving them space to talk and dialogue that is important.

It is looking at what matters, what are the things that matter for the future, those issues that they have tackled at the national dialogue.

That is important and to continue to listen and to I work with the international community.

All of these will require commitment will require sustained to require national ownership.

[Other language spoken]

To conclude, all people of South Sudan, they express their views and also they would like to continue dialogue together and iron out the problems and proposing that annual conferences should be conducted every year is supposed to be the state supposed to hold annual conferences for dialogue to air out the the the problems.

Adding to that, the issue of women, women not only in this in the transitional constitution, 25% even now in the revitalised peace agreement, they're given the percentage of 35% and the national dialogue also recommending that.

I just want to add that thank you.

Thank you to all of you.

But was really, really interesting and, and thank you again for being available.

I wish you all the luck we need to make this process just improve and and and continue.

[Other language spoken]