Currently, SSuDEMOP is focusing on building a five-step approach to advocacy called “Rethinking Advocacy Strategy for Better Results in Extraordinary Times.” The central pillar is “Issue Instrumentalization.” This involves building strategic partnerships and a more hands-on engagement with state actors to bring facts to decision-making boardrooms.

There are many challenges that require courage and skills to navigate. Otherwise, one can easily succumb to repression, or an organization may easily shut down. With the current political turmoil, tensions, and instability in the country, most activists, human rights defenders, and civil society organizations find it difficult to continue their work due to fear of misunderstanding and reprisal by the state. In other parts of the country, civic actors have been arbitrarily detained only to be later released without charges. The operating environment has become more difficult due to the current wave of political detentions, which has led to increased self-censorship among human rights defenders, civic and political actors, to avoid misunderstanding by the state. The current context in the country has also threatened freedom of expression. The public has generally chosen to censor itself, hence depleting the critical mass and stifling the voice. This poses a huge challenge to human rights defenders, civic actors, and civil society organizations. When the people whose rights we defend cannot claim these rights, then our work becomes even more challenging and frustrating.

Currently, defense and protection for all depend on the country’s weak existing legal framework. It’s quite difficult to pinpoint particular legal or institutional protection available for civil society and human rights defenders, other than peer support systems and comradeship among the civic actors and human rights defenders through our networks.

This is, by all standards, one of the most unfortunate phenomena to occur in South Sudan, especially since gaining independence. Ethnic divisions have contributed to undermining the founding spirit that enabled South Sudanese to overwhelmingly vote for independence in the 2011 self-determination referendum. Since then, the country has experienced several waves of violence at the national and subnational levels. Unfortunately, all of these have had an ethnic dimension. In recent days, government ministers have publicly labeled countries occupied by one ethnic community as hostile and friendly. This has further exacerbated the ethnic division in the country, leaving other ethnic communities to question who is next with this trend of profiling. In South Sudan, ethnic divisions have led to situations in which members of the ethnic community to which the region's highest-ranking official belongs feel entitled to hold positions in institutions, even if they are less qualified. In return, this has significantly affected the quality of public service and performance of public institutions in the country.

Having witnessed my parents' struggle for liberation, learning of the oppression South Sudanese underwent while the country was united, I am aware of how difficult it was to achieve consensus and include the right to self-determination in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA-2005). I also recognize the sacrifices that the people of South Sudan made for independence. I feel obliged to do my part and contribute to preparing a better country for the next generation of South Sudanese. I think that all South Sudanese should focus on state and nation-building efforts rather than depriving the wider public and focusing on personal interest and self-enrichment by using public resources and offices.