This report was written nearly one year ago, a few weeks before a conflict erupted in Juba on 15 December 2013 and spread throughout much of the Upper Nile region. In the early days of the conflict, publishing a report about land governance hardly seemed like a priority. But a closer examination would have shown that a number of long-standing problems, including tensions over land, were among the factors that set the stage for the conflict. Since obtaining regional autonomy in 2005, the Government of South Sudan has struggled to establish functional land governance systems.
