Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
South Sudan faces an existential crisis. More than four million people – between a third and half of the population – are displaced from their homes. Nearly eight million (opens in new window) people are in need of humanitarian assistance. The economy is in tatters. After almost four years of civil war, conflict has devolved into fighting across multiple fronts.
Traditional chiefs work to reduce the widespread practice of child marriages in South Sudan; a resolution reinstates teachers in Jonglei State who were dismissed last year for protesting poor working conditions and low pay; and female police and correctional officers receive certificates in English literacy and computer science from Kampala University's Juba Study Center.
Migration crises in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa reconfigured global politics. So why – as the millionth South Sudanese took refuge in Uganda earlier this year, and with the total number of South Sudanese refugee and asylum seekers now more than two million – is there no comparable shift in the political posture of East African states?
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta was set to be declared the winner in an election in which he had virtually no competition after the opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) withdrew the candidature...
The results of Kenya’s presidential election are not yet in, and voting will continue in some areas on Saturday, but Raila Odinga’s decision to boycott the election leaves only one outcome possible: President Uhuru Kenyatta will have the...
From 6am tomorrow morning, many, but perhaps not most, Kenyans will vote in the 26 October re-run of Kenya’s presidential election. The dramas that have occurred following the landmark Supreme Court ruling annulling the August 2017 vote have been extraordinary. And the situation continues to evolve quickly.
It might be shorter to list those who were not critical of international election observers in Kenya. Following the historic decision of Kenya’s Supreme Court to nullify the August 8 presidential elections, international election observation missions (EOMs) have been pummelled.
"I think that they will be extremely cautious," said Jonas Claes, a senior program officer at the United States Institute of Peace. He said he anticipates "a lot more neutral and bland statements." Aly Verjee, an expert at the United States Institute of Peace, cited a disputed 2011 gubernatorial election in South Kordofan, Sudan, which triggered deadly conflict, as "one of the most egregious examples" of the failure of international observers. In that case, he said, observers prematurely endorsed the poll despite evidence of irregularities. However, Verjee described much of the criticism of Kenya's election observers as unfair, noting that respected missions urged Odinga to take his complaints to court even though his supporters initially said they would not. Election observers, Verjee said, "are not forensic investigators, nor police, nor should anyone expect them to be."
Alleging the elections were rigged, Odinga is contesting the results at the Supreme Court. The Court is required to hear the case and deliver a verdict by 1 September.
The shocking murder of Christopher Msando, which came to light this week, casts a pall over Kenya’s 8 August elections. As the acting director of information and communications technology at the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Msando had a key role in two critical aspects of the electoral process: the biometric identification of voters at polling stations; and the results management system, which aggregates votes once they’ve been counted at the polling station level.