Who is Hon. Awut Deng Achuil – South Sudanese Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation?

Wednesday, November 21, 2019 (PW) — Ms. Awut Deng Acuil born on July 15, 1963, she is currently the South Sudan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and a member of South Sudan Legislative Assembly representing Tonj East Constituency. She also serves as a member of the political bureau as well as the National Liberation Council of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, South Sudan’s ruling party, for which she and her entire family have made immeasurable sacrifices over years.

From 2005 to August 2019, Ms. Awut served in various positions which includes Presidential Advisor on Gender and Human Rights, Minister of Labor, Public Service and Human Resource Development, Minister of Humanitarian and Disaster Management and Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare.

Ms. Awut was a member of the SPLM/A peace negotiating team in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed on January 9, 2005 in Kenya known as Naivasha Agreement, as well as a member of the national pre-transitional committee for the revitalized peace agreement on the resolution of conflicts in South Sudan in which she was a member who actively participated in the peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from January 2014.

Ms. Awut is someone who has beaten personal odds that are difficult to imagine. Like thousands of South Sudanese women, she was married in her teens, lived in refuge in foreign countries with her children while her spouse fought in the liberation war in 1980s and 1990s, educated herself through sheer determination and wit, and above all, most tragically, widowed at a young age due to this liberation struggle.

During the years of the war, when she lived in exile in Kenya, Ms. Awut Deng demonstrated so many of her talents in political and community organizing, human rights activism and peace building. She was involved in leading women’s groups in search for unity, peace and recognition of women’s rights as human rights. An expert trainer on conflict resolution, she contributed immensely to the success of the New Sudan Council of Churches as one of the most effective conflict mitigation organizations in Sudan.

Her efforts through the NSCC, especially her focus on people-to-people peace initiatives in Bahr el-Ghazal and Upper Nile, which led to the ending of Nuer-Dinka conflicts, some of South Sudan’s most gruesome episodes of ethnic violence in the 1990s. More significantly, she pushed for New Sudan Council of Churches’ recognition of women’s important role in peace-building, a step that resulted in the mandate that peace teams are composed of at least one-third of women. For her demonstrated leadership in these initiatives, Ms. Awut Deng received a Peace Awards.  

In recognition of her leadership role in these efforts, Ms. Awut Deng received the 2002 Interaction Humanitarian Award for making a significant contribution to the political developments in Sudan that lead to the settlement of the conflict and for exemplifying the qualities of courage, leadership, initiative, creativity, grace under pressure, personal integrity and personal sacrifice. She was the second African woman to receive this award, the first having gone to Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela.

She was also recognized for her vital role in global peace efforts and received the Fern Holland Award of the Vital Voices Global Partnership, presented to her by Hilary Clinton, in 2007. 

Some of the other major peace events that she has facilitated include the following: A three-day consultation meeting for women leaders in Rumbek County, Lakes State; A meeting with 93 chiefs, women’s groups and civil authority in Yirol County, Lakes State; Meetings focusing on inter-sectional fighting in Lakes State among the Dinka with SPLM County Secretaries in Rumbek, Yirol, Cueibet, Twic and Abyei Counties; Participated in Building Blocks for Peace in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region and in the women and the constitution conference.

In her grassroots and international level advocacy for peace in Sudan, Ms. Awut met His Holy See John Paul II, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Dr. Raiser, Vice President of the United States of America Al Gore, senior staff of the United States Department of State and members of the United States Congress.

Likewise, within the East African region, Ms. Awut Deng has liaised with parliamentary groups in Kenya and Uganda, prompting Kenyan MPs to pressure their government to stay clear of Sudan’s oil, declaring it blood oil for Sudan’s genocidal practices around oil fields. She was also involved in the founding of several civil society activist groups such as Sudanese Women’s Association in Nairobi to address issues of unity and peace among women of different ethnic backgrounds in South Sudan. She also co-founded Sudanese Women’s Voice for Peace to advocate for peace and reconciliation.

Ms. Awut’s professional experience can be described as hands-on and action-oriented rather than theoretical. A quick glance at the following list of events that she has either facilitated or participated in reveals a person who is dedicated to sustainable peace in her nation and the world at large. Just to mention a few, she was part of numerous efforts by the New Sudan Council of churches in 2000-2002 period to conduct needs assessment in Upper Nile and Bahr el-Ghazal as part of community mobilization process to address key needs such as potable water, schools, clinics and infrastructure, etc.

The subsequent programs that resulted from these assessments included a redesign of war-time aid programs to streamline peace through fair access to scarce resources. She facilitated the first and second West Bank Peace Council meetings in Ganyiel, Western Upper Nile region. She was instrumental in the success of the people-to-people peace programs in Wunlit, beginning with the first mobilization of participants among chiefs, to the actual main peace agreement event in 1998, and was involved in organizing the anniversary of the Wunlit people-to-people peace agreement between Dinka and Nuer Communities in Rumbek, which was celebrated by over 3000 people from both communities. In the same vain, she mobilized for and worked for the founding of the Sudan Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Ms. Awut Deng Acuil was also Secretary of Information in the Dinka-Nuer Peace Council, 1998-1999, a position she used to help organize the Wunlit people to people peace conference, to organize youth and women’s groups, the elders, chiefs, spiritual leaders for the purpose of mobilizing local resources for community contribution towards the peace conference. She also established Pankar Peace Initiative in 2002, to involve the public in the area to debate peace issues and good governance. This program has now been transformed into Pankar Peace Council, a community forum for peaceful coexistence between Dinka sections of Lakes and Warrap States.

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Ms. Awut Deng has been actively involved in many leadership events in service to the SPLM as well as the government. In her capacity as the party’s Secretary for External Relations, organized the first SPLM Diaspora Chapters leadership conference in Juba in 2007. This conference brought together the SPLM leadership to discuss fundamental issues related to the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement, the role of the Diaspora in achieving the overall vision of the SPLM. She was a member of the Review Commission of Sudan Interim National Constitution. 

When the SPLM convention took place in May 2008 in Juba, Ms. Awut Deng was appointed by the president /chairman of the SPLM to mobilize resources needed for the Sudan’s general elections. Working closely with an entire team, she ensured that her mission achieved its goals in a timely manner, a task that bore fruits in that the SPLM received an overwhelming vote at all levels in the 2010 elections.

When the President went to Bentiu in 2008 to meet with the traditional kings, chiefs and other customary leaders, he appointed Ms. Awut as the chairperson of the organizing committee, along with two other ministers and three governors. The conference discussed issues of law and the justice system as well as the interface between traditional leadership in peace and nation building on the one hand and the nation on the other.

During the period leading up to the referendum and the declaration of independence, Ms. Awut Deng initiated a women-led South Sudan prayer for a peaceful referendum, which was conducted every month till the eve of the referendum.

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the prolonged North-South war, Ms. Awut had caught attention of South Sudan’s political leadership so that she was appointed as Presidential Advisor on Gender and Human Rights in the first post-war Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), as South Sudan’s interim government was then known.

She was subsequently appointed as Minister of Labor, Public Service and Human Resource Development, a position she held for many years, being appointed to it three times, and making the ministry a more visible and successful ministry. Through this office, she established programs of support to the nation by NEPAD, AU Commission on Economic Affairs, and UNDP-Africa, all aimed at contributing to the development plan for South Sudan and create a roadmap for reconstruction and economic development.

As minister of Labor, Ms. Awut championed a variety of programs both in her civil service reform programs and human resource capacity enhancement. Through her initiatives, the Ministry created a program funded by IGAD to recruit civil service support officers from the neighboring countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda into a two-year program to work in South Sudan along with local civil servants as a skill transfer mechanism.

 She also initiated a program for training of senior civil servants in Kenya and a training retreat for all the ministers of the government of South Sudan in Mombasa. Her initiatives also included invitation of senior officials in the ministries of labor of Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia to share their experiences of long service in their countries with the officials of this young state, with an eye to enhancing their abilities to run their new country. She also further supported the program for training of staff in South Africa, include ten ministers of labor for training in labor administration and labor laws.

She also organized training programs for senior staff in Egypt and Italy, and led a learning expedition to China with a delegation of 12 ministers from both the National and state governments, include three governors. Furthermore, she organized South Sudan’s first conference on labor and labor laws, in collaboration with ILO. The gathering brought together leaders in the labor movement, workers unions and government.

Her programs on civil service reform, pay roll cleansing, and establishment of meritocracy in employment resulted in the removal of 20,000 ghost workers from the system, recovered 6,000,000 SSP in the first phase. Ms. Awut Deng worked out a reform framework for a period of three years that guided the government of Southern of Sudan and the ten states of South Sudan.

These policies were widely debated, appreciated by many citizens and have all put her at odds with some of the ministers who resisted the reforms, leading to her resignation from government, a move that shocked and upset many people within the government and the public at large.

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