IGAD says US has ‘significantly’ scaled down its funding to South Sudan peace process  

JUBA – The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which mediated the revitalized peace agreement has said that the United States of America has significantly scaled down its funding to the implementation of the 2018 peace deal, affecting the work of peace monitoring mechanisms.

The regional bloc made the revelation in a communiqué issued from Kenyan capital Nairobi where IGAD head of states met for an extra-ordinary submit to discuss several key regional issues including the South Sudan peace process.

In the communiqué, the regional bloc commended the progress made by the South Sudan parties to the agreement in the implementation process of the agreement, but “Observed that only eight (8) months remain to the end of the Transition Period in the South Sudan peace process while a number of critical tasks are still outstanding.”

The IGAD communiqué “called upon the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity and the Parties to draw up a roadmap with clear benchmarks and realistic timelines to complete the remaining tasks including the conduct of elections.”

It further revealed that the United States of America has scaled down its funding to the implementation process of the revitalized peace agreement, affecting the work of peace monitoring mechanisms such as R-JMEC and the CTSAMVM.

“[The IGAD head of states] Appealed to key partners of the South Sudan Peace Process particularly the United States of America to reconsider their decision to significantly scale down their support to the peace process in South Sudan that is crippling the work of critical agreement mechanisms such as the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) and the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM); and agencies supporting the delivery of much-needed humanitarian assistance,” it said.