Social Science Research Council

These days’ mood in Khartoum is a mixture of disillusionment, suspicion and fear: not the best feelings for a country which finds itself at a crucial moment to determine its future. Amidst a growing anxiety, the different actors involved on the political scene seem to be affected by a form of paralysis: they are not [...]

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 [...]

There are ten reasons why Sudan is doomed to chaos, why the 2010 elections will not take place and why conflict eruption is imminent in 2010.
The option of the 2010 referendum is simply not going to take place. I hate to be the one raising this point. But this is the reality of things, and [...]

The scenario exercises by Clingendael and USIP are extremely useful, both in the possible futures that they pose, and in the questions they oblige us to ask. The comment and elaboration by John Ashworth, which portrays the CPA as no more than a truce in a war of separation that is, implicitly, generations old, concentrates [...]

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement is not comprehensive, nor peace, nor an agreement, as I have argued in detail elsewhere (1). It is a cease-fire agreement between only two parties in only one of the conflicts in Sudan, with a framework or “road map” for peace in 2011, signed under intense international pressure. While there was [...]

Sudan’s upcoming seminal events – the 2010 elections and 2011 referendum – will alter the course of Sudanese history. How they happen, if they don’t happen, or don’t happen on schedule, the impact may be equally consequential. There is a high potential for political violence associated with these events. Few Sudan watchers [...]

The future of Sudan is uncertain. At present the international community, governments, international organisations and civil society groups are primarily focused on stimulating implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and making sure an election and referendum take place. Consequently, until recently little time was given to thinking strategically about the period after 2011. What [...]

Sudan faces two momentous events in the next fifteen months. The first is the general election, intended as the first multi-party nationwide elections in the nation’s history (earlier multiparty elections in the 1960s and 1980s did not include war-affected areas in the south, an exclusion that doomed the resulting governments). The second is the referendum [...]

“Sudan: Attraction of Unity and Challenges of Separation” was the theme of a two-day workshop organised by the National Civic Forum in Justice Africa’s Sudan office Conference Hall on 15-16 August 2009. The main objective of the workshop was to look at ways of making unity attractive for the people of South Sudan in the [...]