Protection without Power? The Successes and Failures of UN Civilian Protection in South Sudan

Authors

• Gatkuoth Lok Gatwich Diet, Institute for Social Transformation, Tangaza University, NairobiFollow

Abstract

Since its establishment in 2011, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has been tasked with protecting civilians in the context of ongoing violent conflict and political instability. The mission has recorded some important achievements, especially through the creation of Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites that have provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. However, these gains have been accompanied by major limitations. Repeated attacks on PoC sites, continued communal violence, and the inability to prevent large-scale atrocities highlight a persistent gap between mandate and real-world implementation. This essay examines UNMISS’s performance from 2013 to the present, focusing on its operational strategies, structural limitations, and political constraints. It argues that while UNMISS has delivered essential short-term protection, its overall effectiveness has been weakened by limited resources, restricted mobility, interference from the host state, and weak enforcement capacity. The paper concludes that without meaningful reforms in mandate execution, funding, and political backing, UNMISS will continue to face a central dilemma: being expected to protect civilians without having the power to do so effectively and efficiently.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Gatwich Diet, Gatkuoth Lok (2026) "Protection without Power? The Successes and Failures of UN Civilian Protection in South Sudan," The Journal of Social Encounters: Vol. 10: Iss. 2, 27-31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69755/2995-2212.1430
Available at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/social_encounters/vol10/iss2/4