The National Dialogue Initiative in South Sudan Assessing Progress and Pitfalls

"An assessment of progress made and challenges faced by South Sudan's National Dialogue Initiative to reconcile intercommunal violence. The National Dialogue consultation process started in early November 2017 at local and regional level and is envisaged to end in mid-2018. This process is paving the way for regional dialogue conferences, which will culminate in the National Dialogue Conference in late 2018. Accordingly, it may be timely and worthwhile to take stock of progress made so far, identify current and possible obstacles to the process, and recommend ideas that may assist to sustain the National Dialogue. Granted, a lot of ground is yet to be covered, as the National Dialogue consultations intend to cover each of South Sudan’s 32 states, in addition to refugee and international outreach consultations in 15 countries in Africa, Australia, Europe and North America.1 An assessment of progress and challenges at this stage will allow for early diagnosis of impediments that may hamper and encumber the smooth progression of the process, and thereby provide room for amends."