Social Science Research Council

The referendum on national unity scheduled for 2011 is an existential crisis for Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP). This article examines the danger of war in the coming months.
Outlook for the NCP
The NCP is in a unique position. The most lucrative oil regions are along the north/south border — ground zero for serious ethnic [...]

A new volume examines climate and ecological changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how these relate to conflicts on the continent. Particular attention is paid to environmental and livelihood aspects of the crisis in Darfur. Conclusions are drawn regarding peace-building in areas facing resource constraints.

The book includes research conducted in-house at UPEACE Africa in Addis Ababa [...]

Today, the Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor spoke to an audience at the end of a two day seminar in Khartoum and said that the last hopes for unity were being extinguished. Sharia, he said, had destroyed the last chance for unity, and the CPA was not being implemented the way it was supposed to [...]

The AUPD report is available in Arabic on this link.

The slogan ‘African solutions to African problems’ has become hackneyed and discredited. One reason why it is not taken seriously is that there has been little African analysis of African problems, because African institutions have borrowed their definitions and methodologies from elsewhere. The agenda has usually been set by non-African governments, multilateral institutions and NGOs, [...]

The following documents from the African Union Panel on Darfur can be uploaded here:
The AUPD report as presented last week: AUPD Report Final October 2009
The communique of the AU Peace and Security Council: PSC Mtg Cmqe 29 Oct 09
The speech of Pres. Thabo Mbeki to the AU PSC on 29 October: Speech by Pres Mbeki [...]

The report of African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD) has injected a new dynamic into Sudanese political life. President Thabo Mbeki has confounded those who had forgotten that he was the architect of the negotiated dismantling of Apartheid, and short-sightedly misperceived him as a member of the club of African status quo statists. [...]

I have the feeling this Abu Sharati business is a storm in a teacup. I have no idea for certain whether he was a plant or not, and I suspect few of us who have been following the story do. A quick bit of research reveals he has made around 3 statements in the mainstream [...]

The controversy over whether HIV positive individuals should be deployed as peacekeepers took a new turn this week when Sergeant Sipho Mthethwa of the South African National Defence Force was deployed as a peacekeeper to Sudan. Originally, the SANDF had refused to deploy Sgt. Mthethwa, who is a musician, because he was openly living [...]

I was truly fascinated by Izzadine Abdul Rasoul’s article “Janjaweeds in US State Department” published in the Sudan Tribune on October 25, 2009.
Mr. Abdul Rasoul is said to be a stringer for the [New York] Times but seems to have a less than convincing command of the English language.
Intrigued by this situation I began [...]