Building the pool of experts on conflict sensitivity in South Sudan will go a long way towards consolidating capacities for designing conflict-sensitive peacebuilding programmes for the country. In order to achieve this, ACCORD’s African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme (APCP) conducted a Training of Trainers (ToT) course for 22 personnel from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on Conflict Sensitive Approaches to Development, Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Assistance in Juba, South Sudan from 6-8 October 2015. The main aim of the training was to consolidate the practitioners’ capacity in designing and conducting trainings on conflict sensitivity for their own staff and other relevant target audiences or constituents, thereby increasing the number of practitioners that are competent in mainstreaming conflict sensitivity into their organisational policies and practice.
The training increased the skills and knowledge of 22 practitioners engaged in humanitarian, development and peacebuilding work in South Sudan to effectively design and deliver a training course on conflict sensitivity. The training also provided the practitioners with an opportunity to network and share best practices with each other. The training further created an avenue for better synergy between ACCORD, IOM and the targeted CSOs in South Sudan thereby contributing to coordinated and coherent interventions between and among the organisations.
Conflict Sensitivity pertains to stakeholders, practitioners and entities involved in humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding and development, enabling them to understand the contexts in which they are operating in, particularly the nature and dynamics of intergroup tensions and the divisive issues with a potential for conflict, and the connecting issues with the potential to mitigate conflict and strengthen social cohesion. It also involves understanding the interaction between interventions of the aforesaid actors and a particular context. As a result of this training, the targeted CSOs and IOM personnel are more competent to deliver training on conflict sensitivity to their staff and relevant target audiences, which will contribute to increasing the capacity of practitioners to minimize the negative impact and maximize the positive impacts of interventions or programmes.
The training was held under the auspices of ACCORD’s Peacebuilding Coordination Programme (APCP). The overall objective of APCP is to contribute to greater coherence and coordination amongst peacebuilding actors in Africa, towards enhanced stability and security across the continent, with South Sudan being one of APCP’s focus countries. ACCORD will continue to enhance the capacity building of key peacebuilding stakeholders in South Sudan as part of the APCP.
