Friends in need are friends indeed: triangular co-operation and twinning for capacity development in South Sudan

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) initiative provides 199 civil service support officers
(CSSOs) to South Sudan, where they are twinned with counterparts across many ministries and sectors to
rapidly develop core government capacity in a coaching and mentoring scheme. These CSSOs come from
the civil services of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, and are seconded for two-year terms. The initiative
resonates well with the UN Civilian Capacity reform process and the calls for more use of regional
capacity, and more flexible and bottom-up approaches when supporting countries emerging from conflict.
The initiative is a promising and potentially innovative model of triangular co-operation for capacity
development for four reasons. Firstly, it provides a model of large-scale support to rapid capacity
development in core government functions. Secondly, the use of regional capacity to a certain degree
mitigates the potential resentment that capacity support can generate when external experts are brought
into capacity-poor environments. Thirdly, the programme already shows evidence of impact on core
practices such as establishing strategic plans, drafting policies and supporting their development. Finally,
there seems to be a strong ownership of the programme by the government of South Sudan and many of
the twins.