War has skewed the demographic balance in south Sudan where children make up 53% of the population. Due to the large number of men who have either been killed or forced to migrate in search of work, females comprise 55%…
The SPLM’s Secretariat of Education (SoE) has explicitly linked gender, education and peace within the Directorate of Gender Equity and Social Change. This forward-looking move recognises the potential of education to enhance a gender-just peace. The SoE now has the…
John Garang spoke of his ambition to ensure universal primary education in south Sudan within six years. However, the legacy of 21 years of conflict and underfunding is daunting. Fewer than 200 of the 1,600 schools in southern Sudan have…
Sudan has a state-owned broadcaster which owns all transmission networks and a censored press. Nearly all media originates from the North with only a small amount of local radio content available in the South. Fear of persecution under emergency laws…
In a country of some 40 million people only 700,000 are electricity users and 70% of electricity is used in the Khartoum area. The Joint Assessment Mission’s cluster on infrastructure called for massive investment to dramatically increase Sudan’s generation capacity.…
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that there are currently 1,100 vehicles used by the 81 agencies meeting the needs of over two million displaced people in Darfur. Are the vehicles the right type to…
The Beja, the Cushitic original inhabitants of eastern Sudan, are a traditionally nomadic group with some three million members living in southern Egypt, northeastern Sudan and northern Eritrea. Believed to be the first to domesticate the camel, the Beja live…
We talk about Sudan and the peace deal signed two weeks ago. Jacob is excited, yet – like most Sudanese I talk to – sceptical. “Those big people brokering the peace received six hundred US dollars per day in attendance…
Professor Kälin, in September 2004 you were appointed the ‘UN Secretary-General’s Representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons’. Your predecessor, Dr Francis Deng, did not have the words ‘human rights’ in his title. Does this indicate a change…
Sudan is a nation whose identity has been divisively distorted but which is now striving to rediscover itself, albeit in a tragically violent way. The silver lining is that a more constructive search for an identity framework around which Sudanese…