A unification agreement to rebuild trust and confidence has been signed by two rival factions of South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the Sudan Tribune reports.

The deal, dubbed the “Declaration of Unification”, was signed on Thursday in Cairo, Egypt, under the auspices of Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah El Sisi and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni.

The steps outlined in the signed declaration are an important move forward in helping to build peace and end the disputes between the SPLM factions and will be coordinated and followed up by Egypt’s General Intelligence Service.

The Cairo Declaration, which included the names of Pagan Amum, a former political detainee, and South Sudan’s defence minister, Kuol Manyang, is expected to speed up implementation of the 2015 Arusha accord, signed nearly three years ago.

Delegates from three factions of the SPLM signed a 12-page agreement in Arusha, Tanzania, in January 2015 laying out key steps toward reunifying the party.

The parties involved included the faction loyal to President Salva Kiir, the SPLM-in-Opposition, which is officially led by former vice president Riek Machar, who is currently in exile in South Africa, and a third made up of party officials who were detained when the conflict erupted in December 2013.

The SPLM was initially founded as the political wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

In the aftermath of South Sudan's civil war that broke out in the country in mid-December 2013, it split into the SPLM-Juba faction headed by Kiir, the SPLM-IO led by Machar and that of the ex-political detainees.