On 20 – 22 July 2026 ACCORD convened a closed three-day strategic roundtable on Sudan and South Sudan in Durban, South Africa. The consultation brought together a select group of senior diplomats, regional and international practitioners, and was a continuation of the consultative roundtable ACCORD facilitated in Pretoria in June 2026.
The roundtable was convened at a moment of acute fragility in both countries. In South Sudan, the December 2026 elections are scheduled to take place against a backdrop of deteriorating security, the ongoing detention of First Vice-President Riek Machar, and the suspension of key opposition figures from transitional arrangements. In Sudan, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is now in its third year with no viable political process in sight, has resulted in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and an increasingly complex web of regional and international actors with differing and competing interests.
Across the three days, participants engaged in a frank assessment of the political, security, and economic dynamics driving both conflicts, with particular attention to the war economies sustaining armed actors, the structural limitations of existing mediation tracks, and the fragmentation of international responses. A key theme throughout was the concept of African agency: what it means in practice, why it has so far been insufficient, and what combination of leadership, institutional capacity, and political will would be required to assert it more effectively.
ACCORD’s convening of this roundtable reflects its ongoing commitment to African-led and African-owned approaches to conflict prevention, mediation and peace process engagement across the continent.
