In the Field

In December 2009, Jason Gluck accompanied a delegation of officials and civil society leaders from Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states to Indonesia for a five-day study tour of Indonesia’s recent experiences with secession and negotiated local autonomy. The lessons the Sudanese brought home will prove invaluable in the coming months as they design and implement their own process of self-determination.
 

More people have died in tribal violence in southern Sudan in recent months than in the western Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations special representative to Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, said this week. Creating a peaceful environment before the national elections in 2010 and a referendum on southern independence set for 2011 should be a top priority for the world and Sudanese authorities, Qazi emphasized. USIP has been actively working on the ground to help create a peaceful setting with its USIP training programs on non-violent conflict resolution and election workshops.

ETC/I Senior Program Officers Jacqueline Wilson and Linda Bishai and Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution Program Officer, Jon Temin, conducted a short-form electoral violence prevention consultation in Khartoum with high-level political party representatives, journalists, academics and civil society leaders.  This program included the four voter-education theatre vignettes by Mohammed Sharif and his troupe.

The Education and Training Center/International was involved in two programs in Sudan in January 2009.

In December, the Education and Training Center International Division sponsored four programs in Sudan, in Khartoum, the Nuba Mountains and Darfur. The first of these was a seminar on Civic Education held on December 2-3 at the College of Sharq el Neil, Khartoum. Senior Program Officer, Linda Bishai, worked with Sudanese local partner, The Institute for the Development of Civil Society, to plan and implement this seminar which brought together teachers, education administrators, civil society activists and media experts to discuss the current status of civic education in Sudan.