Peacebuilding through ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ in South Sudan

In South Sudan, two conflicts have erupted since independence in 2011 and ethnic tensions are rising, increasing the importance of "Peace and Social Cohesion" in the country. The National Unity Day (NUD), a national sports competition, has been held annually since 2016 in an effort to support peacebuilding through sports. In this paper, we examine qualitatively and quantitatively the effects of NUD by constructing panel data before and after NUD6, which was held in 2022, with its selected athletes as the treatment group and the non-selected athletes as the control group, and by using testimonies collected from interviews with the athletes. Specifically, we construct “trust” as a proxy variable for social capital and the primary variable in the quantitative analysis, and test whether mistrust causes conflict within the same community, with other ethnic groups, and with the central government. The results revealed that building trust through NUD6 mitigates the perception of conflict toward other ethnic groups. To contextualize these results, we conduct an analysis using qualitative data. The testimonies define the meaning of "peace" and "coexistence" for the athletes and confirm the role of sport in mitigating conflict. One of the new findings is that there are many cases in South Sudan where sport has contributed to conflict mitigation in this way. We were also able to confirm that during NUD6 there were many opportunities for the athletes to interact with other ethnic groups, and that having meals and playing games together was not only an opportunity for interaction, but also a chance for the athletes to become friends with other ethnic groups to foster trust among them. The results show that NUD6 provided exactly the kind of environment that the athletes desired, a place for peaceful coexistence. Based on these findings, it is intended that this paper will contribute both academically and practically as one of the accumulated examples of “sport for development and peace”.