Peace and Security

The world in 2025 saw increased militarisation and instability and the number of conflicts, wars and fatalities of organised violence were at a record high. Global military expenditure also surged to unprecedented levels. Armed conflict hindered efforts to alleviate poverty, continued to drive food and energy insecurity, and render climate goals unattainable. Whereas fragility has become universal, OECD identified 61 states as experiencing high or extreme levels of fragility. These contexts are home to 25 per cent of the world’s population and 72 per cent of the world’s extreme poor. They also generate and host the majority of the world’s forcibly displaced. This context, the cost of war, the cost-efficiency of conflict prevention as well as the need for a human-centered approach to security has received renewed attention. In 2025, Sida disbursed approximately SEK 1.1 billion to contributions addressing peace and security. This represents about 5 per cent of Sida’s total evelopment assistance

The UNDP South Sudan, Peace and Community Cohesion project (PaCC), Phase 1 (2017 to 2020), aimed to improve security by strengthening relations between divided communities through joint projects. It also helped to set up institutional peace institutions at both local and national level.

Main method: Review of documentation and monitoring data, complemented with interviews.

Positives: Beneficiaries reported improvements in a range of areas, including perceived security. However, the data does not permit us to clearly attribute these improvements to the project. Sida’s non-earmarked funding enabled adaptive management and flexibility, allowing funds to be spent across activities as needed, which was perceived as important for achieving positive results.

Potential shortcomings: The security situation in the project areas remain volatile, and gains  are fragile due to recurring crises. The project did not successfully address the weak or absent institutions. Local achievements were not scaled up to the national level, highlighting the difficulties of achieving sustainable impact in a fragile, and conflict-affected context with limited political will. Sida’s reporting is based exclusively on the project data available, which result in limitations of rigidity. These limitations have not been reflected in Sida’s reporting.