The Governor's Forum is an annual event organized since 2006 by the Office of the President with support from UNDP and other partners on policies that touch on the humanitarian, peace and development nexus. The Forum is the highest policy platform that brings together policy actors to South Sudan's capital Juba to deliberate on a wide range of policy issues around governance and democratic principles. One of the Forum's key objectives is to ensure institutions' functionality for effective and efficient transformation and accountability to the population, especially those living in rural areas.

The revival of the Governors' Forum in 2021 - the 5th Governors Forum - after eight years contributed to an advancement in the implementation of the peace agreement and will continue to accelerate the implementation of the Roadmap 2022 to deliver on the promises of 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement Matrix. This will be achieved through the re-unification of organized forces, a participatory permanent constitution-making process, organized return of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons "IDPs" to their places of origin, and elections at the end of the roadmap extension, amongst others. 

Under the theme "Accelerating the implementation of Revitalized peace agreement in accordance with roadmap 2022", the 6th Governors Forum encouraged the parties, stakeholders, and guarantors of the agreement to exert more efforts to implement the roadmap extension.

At the opening ceremony, President Salva Kiir urged the governors to deliberate on a peace path for the country.

 "The discussions you will be holding in the next few days will certainly touch on the difficult topic of how to fast-track the implementation of the roadmap 2022. My hope is that your deliberations will be beneficial to the process of putting our country permanently on the path of peace," President Salva Kiir said.

In his remarks, the First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar expressed his confidence in the progress made in the peace implementation.

"This year, we are holding this Forum when we have done great events and milestones in the implementation of the peace agreement; we have done phase one graduation of the unified security forces. We are confident the country will be secured once these forces are deployed," He said.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations Family, Mr. Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, said;

“This process carries with it the added strength of the states moving together with the center, reinforced by the participation of civil society, of partners and the international community. We look forward to the full inclusion of women’s voices in this important dialogue.”

Among the key issues and challenges discussed at the Forum include the devastating floods in most parts of Greater Upper Nile and Greater Bahr El Ghazal regions, insecurity in the country, and inter-communal conflicts and cattle rustling, especially in Jonglei, Warrap, Eastern Equatoria, Unity State, Pibor and National Alliance Salvation (NAS) rebellion activities in Central Equatoria.