Angoma Okello, Sunday (PhD)Mesfin , Elshaddai2018-11-142024-10-112018-11-142024-10-112016-07https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/14201South Sudan is the world‘s youngest state that held hope for peace, prosperity and development as its independence was announced in July 2011. Yet, two years on the country descended into chaos. The failure of the South Sudan People‘s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to transform itself into a popular movement on the dawn of independence brought with it reasons for disagreement between its members. The culmination point was the outbreak of a war in December 2013 between forces loyal to Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny and President of South Sudan Salvaa Kiir. The dispute was soon framed under ethnic fault lines plunging the world‘s youngest state into a bloody civil war. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was soon mandated as the mediating body to resolve the differences between the two contending personalities as well as manage the unfolding South Sudan crisis. Yet, it failed to do so being itself entrapped in a war of interest vis-a-vis the new state between its dominant member states. While Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan appointed each a Special Envoy for the IGAD Led South Sudan Peace Talks; Uganda deployed its troops in Juba to reassert itself as the big player in the neighbourhood. As such, the South Sudan Mediation Process became a platform of struggle between the four countries to surge out as a hegemon in both the mediation and by extension the Horn of Africa (HoA) region. This struggle stalled the Peace Talks for nearly two years with a standoff between Ethiopia and Uganda on the best way forward for the new South Sudan. Yet, an apparent surge of regionalism as a result of international pressure and revitalization of the mediation process under the IGAD Plus propelled a Compromise Deal (CD) on August 17 2015. This study, through the analysis of reports, articles and books as well as a series of unstructured interviews with key informants and respondents who worked in the peace process, analyses the interests of each of those four hegemons vis vis South Sudan. It then looks at the different roles that are derived from these interests before concluding on the ways forward of IGAD and its viability as a mediating platform in the region.en-USIGAD, South Sudan, Hegemony, South Sudan Peace TalksThesis