US Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from eight African nations are due to meet in Nairobi to discuss ways to prevent South Sudan from sliding back into civil war and advance a political transition in Somalia.
Kerry will meet with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday before joining foreign ministers from Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, Djibouti, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia to discuss South Sudan and Somalia, where there are concerns that delays in the approval of new election rules could dampen its recovery from conflict.
It is Kerry's second trip to Nairobi since May 2015.
On Tuesday, he travels to Sokoto, Nigeria, the historic Muslim city in the remote northwest, followed by talks with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.
"We will ... talk about how we move forward in trying to implement peace in this country," a senior State Department official said of South Sudan.
"The people of South Sudan have suffered for far too long, and the continued instability there has led almost a million refugees and a humanitarian crisis that is far beyond the abilities of even the international community to respond to," the official told a conference call.
The international community has poured billions of aid into supporting the world's youngest nation, which gained independence in 2011. Oil production, by far the biggest source of government revenue, has plummeted.
But worsening violence has raised fears of a return to civil war that erupted in late 2013, which broadly ran along ethnic lines, pitting President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against his rival and vice president Riek Machar, a Nuer.
World powers and regional states have struggled to find leverage over the warring factions in South Sudan, despite US and European sanctions on some military leaders and African threats of punitive actions.
Especially of concern to Washington was an attack on a Juba hotel in July by uniformed men who killed a US-funded journalist and raped civilians, including aid workers.
The UN has launched an investigation into accusations UN peacekeepers in Juba failed to respond properly to the attack.
