Hilde F. Johnson was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (2011–14). She has since served as a Member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations and as Senior Visiting Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI). From 2007–11 Hilde F. Johnson was Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, where she was in charge of the organization’s humanitarian operations and crisis response. As Minister for International Development of Norway during the period 1997–2005 Hilde F. Johnson was a key player in brokering the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) for Sudan in 2005. She is the author of Waging Peace in Sudan: The Inside Story of the Negotiations That Ended Africa’s Longest Civil War.

‘This devastating insider account by the former UN Special Representative in South Sudan of the corruption and bad governance that have brought the world’s newest state to its knees provides a vital service not only to the truth, but to the people of South Sudan.’ – Christopher Clapham, Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge

‘From the West, we observe countries of civil war, famine, and institutional degradation with a bewildered, hopeless eye. Hilde F. Johnson takes us inside one of the world’s sketchiest countries. South Sudan. Its challenges, collapses, proxy interventions, and the courage of its hope. She’s been at the centre of it, and has candidly written an eye-opening exploration of its history, political manoeuvring, and its brave people’s journey forward.’ – Sean Penn

‘In 2011 South Sudan became the world’s newest nation. I was among those who celebrated with the people who had endured and lost so much. It was a jubilant time. But instead of the longed for peace and justice, there came mayhem; massacres and atrocities of the worst kind. How could the leaders, liberators of South Sudan betray themselves and their people? Hilde F. Johnson was there. In South Sudan: The Untold Story, she gives us an inside account. With insight and uncommon objectivity, she details the corruption and greed for power that brought this hope-filled, newborn nation into catastrophe. This is an invaluable, outstanding book.’ – Mia Farrow

‘Those engaged with Sudan and South Sudan for decades are all asking fundamental questions about how the world’s youngest nation went from celebrating its freedom in 2011 to plunging into the abyss three years later. Hilde F. Johnson’s in-depth analysis leaves no stone unturned in her search for answers in this excellent and well-researched book. South Sudan: The Untold Story tells it all – with sharp observation, honesty and uncompromising objectivity. It is a must read for anyone interested in Africa and the fate of South Sudan, as it stands on the brink of state implosion.’ – John Prendergast

‘Hilde F. Johnson was appointed head of the United Nations Mission to South Sudan following that country’s independence in 2011. She brought more experience in Sudanese and South Sundanese affairs to that job than most diplomats and NGOs who came to the country following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan’s second civil war in 2005. An academic, a humanitarian, a former Norwegian government minister, and a diplomat involved in the CPA negotiations, she was well acquainted with the outstanding issues of the peace agreement and the Sudanese and South Sundanese personalities involved. Her tenure as head of UNMISS was not without controversy, as she records here. But this is more than an autobiographical memoir. It is a sharp analysis of South Sudan’s launch into nationhood, based on her insider’s knowledge as an active participant, and buttressed by extensive independent reporting by academics, journalists and NGOs. She got to know well many of the prominent personalities in South Sudan’s on-going political crisis, and she has left perceptive descriptions of the competent and incompetent, the well intentioned who lacked the will to bring about necessary reforms, and the totally self-serving chancers whose main goal in independence was self-enrichment. The challenges she faced as head of mission were not all generated by South Sudanese. She also had to contend with a remote UN bureaucracy, slow to respond to new emergencies, as well as self-publishing and uncooperative NGOs. For anyone involved in South Sudan now who wants to learn lessons from the past failures in order to avoid them, this book is essential reading.’ – Douglas H. Johnson, Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute and author of South Sudan: A New History for a New Nation