USAID/OTI Sudan Hot Topics
July 2004
Working to Cement the Peace: OTI Sudan Program
With the late May signing of the Naivasha Protocols by the SPLM and the government of Sudan (GoS), the prospects for a final end to years of war and instability in Africa’s largest country look promising. The challenge for the international community and both parties in the conflict is to provide a stable foundation for peace by disseminating accurate information on the Naivasha Protocols throughout southern Sudan.
Two USAID/OTI-funded projects, the Sudan Radio Service (SRS) and the Southern Sudan Transition Initiative (SSTI), are working to spread news of the protocols and facilitate grass-roots participation in the peace process.
In the past year, the Sudan Radio Service, implemented by the Education Development Center, has provided timely updates and on-the-scene coverage at the Naivasha peace talks. In response to listener feedback indicating confusion about the accord’s details, the SRS devoted much of its June programming to exploring the specifics of the peace agreements. For example, one of the civic education programs, "The Road to Peace," featured a comprehensive comparison between the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement (which ultimately failed) and the Naivasha Accords.
Other programs included discussions on the impact of the potential peace on women and coverage of a local governance workshop in Yei. An SRS reporter also accompanied SPLM leader John Garang on his trip throughout southern Sudan to assure the population of the accords’ benefits for the region. The launch of the SRS website (www.sudanradio.org) in June has considerably expanded the radio station’s audience to include Sudanese living in Europe and North America. Visitors to the site can listen to a variety of programs in nine languages on demand and feedback thus far has been quite positive.
Through the USAID/OTI-funded South Sudan Transition Initiative, a grant program implemented by PACT, several conferences have taken place in June in the transition areas of Southern Blue Nile, Abyei and the Nuba Mountains. As a result of the Naivasha Protocols, the transition areas will governed by both the SPLM and the government of Sudan in a complex power-sharing arrangement. The local NGOs approached PACT with a proposal to hold large town hall meetings in all three transition areas to disseminate the protocols and address the concerns of communities living in both GoS and SPLM areas about how their lives will change. In addition, the negotiating team will take feedback from the communities on the protocols to the final round of peace talks in Naivasha scheduled for early July. If successful, the conferences will go a long way in confidence-building for the peace process and encourage cross-border dialogue on governance and peace matters.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C: Bailey Hand, Sudan Program Manager, Tel: (202) 712-0795, bhand@usaid.gov
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