Assessment of the effectiveness of the 1997 Otawa convention in eliminating anti-personnel landmines, a case study of South Sudan

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to assess the implementation of the 1997 Ottawa Convention in eliminating Anti-personnel landmines in South Sudan so as to come up with strategies to address any challenges. Its specific objectives were: to examine the nature of anti-personnel landmines and its effect on the environment in South Sudan, to assess the contribution of the 1997 Ottawa Convention in ensuring elimination of anti-personnel landmines in South Sudan and to investigate the challenges that South Sudan is facing and how they affect implementation of the 1997 Ottawa Convention. The study used a mixed-method of quantitative and qualitative research approaches. It employed cross-sectional survey whereby the researcher studied and analysed data from a different category of respondents without altering them at a single point in time. A total of 52 respondents who were selected either purposively or by simple random sampling techniques participated in data collection. The questionnaire and interview methods were used with the questionnaire and interview guide instruments. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data and findings presented in tables and figures. Findings according to the regression coefficients on Objective One, the correlation analysis findings revealed a positive and moderate significant effect of the nature of anti-personnel landmines on the environment in South Sudan (β = .498 p ≤ 0.05). This meant that a unit improvement in the nature of anti-personnel landmines would result in a 49.8% improvement on the environment in South Sudan. Furthermore, findings of R2 = 0.268 indicated that the nature of anti-personnel landmines account for 26.8% of the effect on the environment in South Sudan. Objective two indicated a moderate positive significant relationship between the 1997 Ottawa convention (r (226) = .532, p<0.01) and elimination of APLs in South Sudan. The implication of this finding is that in instances where the 1997 Ottawa convention demonstrates exemplary implementation, there would be a significant elimination of APLs. In addition, the magnitude of the dependency was given by the value of the adjusted R2 (.274) which implied that the independent variable (1997 Ottawa convention) account for about 27.4% of the variations in the dependent variable (elimination of APLs). While objective three findings indicated that there was a moderate positive significant effect of challenges that South Sudan faces on implementing the Ottawa Convention as shown by the value of the standardized coefficient of (β = .538 p ≤ 0.05). This meant that there was a moderate linearly association between challenges that South Sudan faces and implementation of the Ottawa Convention. Furthermore, the statistics of R2 = 0.366 indicated that challenges which South Sudan faces predicted 36.6% as a change in the level of implementing the Ottawa Convention, implying that for any improvement in the challenges which South Sudan faces there would be 36.6% improvement on implementation of the Ottawa Convention, while other factors contribute 63.4%. The study recommended under objective one, that the Government of South Sudan should work with the Humanitarian NGOs to put in place policies and strategies to provide financial and material support to the people whose environment, economic activities and sustainability were affected by the national political insecurity. For objective two, that the central government should improve the mechanisms of increasing community awareness on its progress on implementing the 1997 Ottawa Convention and to ensure that favourable government policies on national security mine action equipment clearance requirements are in place, and concerning objective three, the study recommended that the Government should work hand in hand with all stakeholders of the elimination of APLs to agree on regulatory provisions and strategies of addressing the existing challenges which do limit the implementation of the 1997 Ottawa Convention objectives.