By Erik Solheim, Chair of OECD DAC, UNEP special envoy for environment, conflict and disaster, and former Norwegian Minister of environment and international development

It might be the beginning of the end of the nightmare in South Sudan when Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and Norwegian Foreign Minister Brende open a donor conference in Oslo today. For that to happen, we must fund peace keepers, support peace entrepreneurs and ensure that South Sudanese oil revenues support peace.

What started out as a power struggle between the two top leaders in South Sudan has become an ethnic war and humanitarian disaster. One million people are internally displaced, 300,000 forced to flee and tens of thousands killed. The country is on the verge of famine. The donor conference in Oslo is an opportunity to raise funds for humanitarian needs and to support the fragile peace process.

The crisis in South Sudan is a political creation and will require a political solution. It all started when President Salva Kiir dismissed his vice president Riek Machar and other leaders of the ruling party SPLM. The two men once fought together for independence from Sudan. Now they are sworn enemies. The parties recently reached a peace agreement after negotiations in Ethiopia, but it did not take long before fighting resumed. The problem was that the truce was a result of outside pressure. It was made clear during the negotiations that Kiir and Machar would lose all support and probably end up before an international criminal court if an agreement was not reached. The peace deal was not a reflection of reconciliation or a political agreement between the president and his former deputy. The mood between them is ice cold and both of them still think they can benefit from victories on the battlefield.

Such artificial peace processes will always be fragile, but the only alternative is to wait for a military outcome. That would be a long a bloody affair. It was therefore right of the regional powers as represented by Ethiopia and the international community led by the US to push through a peace agreement.

Read the full article on the Huffington Post.