USAID/OTI Sudan Success Stories March 2007
The overarching goal of the USAID/OTI Sudan program is to strengthen Sudanese confidence and capacity to address the causes and consequences of the political marginalization, violence, and instability that has consumed the country for nearly 50 years.
Working within the context of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the OTI/Sudan program focuses on promoting the emergence of responsive and effective civil authorities, establishing peaceful dialogue within and among communities, fostering the emergence of an active civil society, increasing the availability of independent information, and protecting vulnerable populations from grave human rights violations and related abuses.
Land Rights Awareness - A Step Toward Reducing Conflict in East Sudan
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| USAID/OTI partnered with a local Sudanese NGO to train grassroots-level activists on the CPA and ESPA. |
During the last five years, conflict has intensified between Eastern Sudan's primarily agro-pastoralist and pastoralist indigenous communities and foreign investors over the confiscation of land and water for commercial agriculture. Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the recently signed Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (ESPA) stress the need for the peaceful resolution of conflicts related to the allocation of scarce resources such as land, oil, and water. However, the majority of the inhabitants of Eastern Sudan's indigenous communities are unaware of their rights as reflected in the CPA and ESPA. Furthermore, the members of these communities often lack the conflict management skills that would help them resolve land disputes peacefully.
To address this potential driver of conflict in the region, USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) partnered with a nongovernmental Sudanese civil society organization to organize a five-day workshop and training-of-trainers program focused on the CPA, ESPA, and conflict transformation skills applicable to land disputes.
Initially, the grantee had difficulty reaching remote pastoralists. By the second day of the workshop, however, word had spread that, for the first time, an organization was reaching out to pastoralists regarding issues of importance to them under the two peace agreements. Consequently, instead of attracting the expected 50 participants, the workshop had 70 attendees, including representatives from a very conservative nomadic tribe. This marked the first time that members of this tribe had ever attended a workshop with the other tribes in the region.
Prior to the workshop, only 15 percent of the participants had been exposed to the CPA and ESPA. By the end of the training, all of the participants reported that they understood their rights, felt secure, and could protect themselves against violations of their rights. The participants also requested that the workshop be given in rural areas around Kassala so more pastoralists could be mobilized to advocate for better laws regarding the use of Sudanese resources.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C: : Victoria Rames, Program Manager, Tel: (202) 712-4899, vrames@usaid.gov
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