Sudan

This report explores what has happened to the livestock trade in the greater Darfur region during nine years of conflict, since 2003. Livestock is one of Darfur’s main economic assets and makes a major contribution to Sudan’s national livestock and … Read More →

The Feinstein International Center is working with several national and international organizations, with the aim of promoting understanding of pastoralists livelihoods systems among local, national and international stakeholders and strengthening the capacity of pastoralist leaders, organizations and other advocates to articulate the rationale for pastoralism.

This report details the migration experience and livelihood choices of Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers and migrants in Tel Aviv. The research is based on a scoping study conducted by a Feinstein Researcher Rebecca Furst-Nichols in November-December 2010.

Support to the export of pastoralist livestock from the Horn of Africa is often viewed by aid organizations as a key poverty reduction strategy. Drawing on existing literature and field research in Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, this report examines if and how different wealth groups benefit from the export trade. It looks in detail at the household-level economic strategies of different pastoralist wealth groups and their marketing behaviors, and concludes that in terms of poverty reduction, poorer herders benefit least from livestock exports.

This study examined community participation throughout the food aid program cycle to understand the role of recipient communities in the targeting of food assistance under the conflict conditions in Darfur – one of the largest food aid programs in the world. The Darfur conflict is now in its sixth year, and has drawn in a complex web of local, national, and transnational interests, which play out in different types of inter-connected conflict throughout the region. From the start of the conflict in 2003, protection threats and restricted access have been major challenges to the humanitarian community.

Based on fieldwork in rural Darfur, this report uses a livelihoods lens to illustrate the processes that have contributed to the vulnerability of the Darfuri nomads who have much in common with pastoralists globally. Severe pressures on pastoralist livelihoods have contributed to ‘maladaptive’ livelihood strategies that are often linked to violence and conflict, and undermine the livelihoods of both victims and perpetrators.

In recent decades Sudan’s North-South civil war and the conflict in Darfur have generated one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world. A large proportion of these IDPs is found in and around the capital, Khartoum. The Tufts-IDMC study of Khartoum was a pilot for our larger study and was carried out in 2007, two years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. While the CPA raised hopes for the return of IDPs, continuing insecurity, lack of services in areas of return and doubts about the sustainability of the CPA, have slowed the pace of return.

Conflict and crisis in Darfur has continued unabated since 2003. Whilst there has been a growing body of knowledge about how this has impacted on livelihoods, there has been much less focus on understanding how trade and markets – the lifeblood of Darfur’s economy – have been affected.

The population of Southern Sudan was caught in a civil war from 1983 to 2005. During the war, several major famines led to a massive food aid intervention by the World Food Programme – intervention that continues to the present. Much of this food was delivered to vulnerable people by air drops, with the actual targeting of assistance on the ground left to local leaders and traditional authorities. The main objective of targeting was to minimize exclusion.

Humanitarian Agenda 2015: The State of the Humanitarian Enterprise describes the challenges faced by humanitarian actors striving to maintain fidelity to their ideals in a globalized world.

This paper summarises the existing literature on livelihoods, basic services and social protection in South Sudan; presents a brief analysis of this literature, and lays out potential research questions for the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC). Please visit the Research … Read More →

The Feinstein International Center provides advisory support to the Darfur Development and Reconstruction Agency (DRA) – a national NGO in Sudan – to set up and manage a community-based market monitoring network in the Darfur Region. The goal of this market monitoring initiative is to deepen analysis and understanding of the shifting patterns of trade and markets in Darfur on an ongoing basis for key agricultural and livestock commodities; identify how livelihoods and the economy can be supported through trade; and identify peace-building opportunities through trade.

This briefing paper discusses findings from a study conducted in Darfur from 2006-8 that explored the changing role of migration and remittances in the livelihoods of conflict-affected people.

Competing livelihoods in the absence of good local governance has led to localized and ultimately devastating conflict over natural resources in Darfur. The lack of comprehensive livelihoods analysis in international peace processes and humanitarian assistance risks entrenching the Darfur conflict even further.

The paper presents a livelihoods conceptual framework that allows an integrated and coherent analysis of livelihoods in Darfur. The Darfur Peace Accord is full of references to livelihoods and the importance of addressing those conditions that hamper sustainable livelihoods for different groups in order to achieve peace and recovery. The paper explains the advantages of a livelihoods analysis in this context, including its capacity to bring together and make manageable complex yet related strands relating to the wider political economy of conflict, its regional dimensions, relevant customary law and institutions, markets and trade etc.

The World Food Programme has been providing humanitarian food assistance to vulnerable communities and groups in Southern Sudan for over twenty years, but circumstances have changed following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005. The Feinstein International Center undertook this review of programs in Southern Sudan to help WFP Sudan make the needed changes to adapt to these new circumstances. The objective of this study is to improve programming in the 2007 EMOP and the subsequent PRRO. The Feinstein International Center views this as one step to building a long-term partnership with WFP Sudan.

Sudan has been torn by conflict and political strife throughout its history. As a result of the various conflicts, the political and economic situation in different parts of Sudan is very different. Discussions with a group of international NGOs (INGOs) in Khartoum highlighted the fact that there was tension between human rights and local traditions, so INGOs have to be pragmatic.

Presentation slides for the Livelihoods, Power and Choice project findings.

By A. Catley, T. Leyland and S. Bishop. In L. Alinovi, G. Hemrich and L. Russo (eds.), Beyond Relief: Food Security in Protracted Crises. Practical Action Publishing, Rugby. 2008.

By Helen Young and Daniel Maxwell (2012). Disasters (forthcoming)

By M. Barasa, A. Catley, D. Machuchu, H. Laqua, E. Puot, D. Tap Kot, and D. Ikiror (2008). Transboundary and Emerging Diseases 55, 339-351

Rahim, H. A., R. Ruben, and E. C. van Ierland (2008). Agroforestry Systems Vol. 73(2): 115-126.

By H. Young. 2007. Disasters 31(S1): S40 – S56.

By H. Young and A. M. Osman, (2007). International Migration Review. 41(4): 826-849.

Rahim, H. A., E. C. van Ierland, and Justus Wesseler (2007). Forest Policy and Economics Vol. 10(1-2):36-47.

By J. Mariner, J. McDermott, J.A.P. Heesterbeek, A. Catley, and P. Roeder (2005). Preventive Veterinary Medicine 69, 245-262

By A. Catley, J. Osman, C. Mawien, B.A. Jones, T.J. Leyland (2002). Preventive Veterinary Medicine 53/4, 275-284

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By Helen Young. Presented at the Christian Aid/ ODI Special Event “Darfur, Another Chance for Peace?” Humanitarian Exchange. (In press.)

Towards a New Intervention. Rahim, H, A. (2007). Report for Oxfam GB- Sudan.

By H. Young. 2006. London, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute.

Rahim, H. A., R. Ruben, and E. C. van Ierland. (2005). In Brooks, K. N., and P.F. Ffolliot, 2005. (eds.) Moving agroforestry into the mainstream. The 9th North American Agroforestry Conference Proceedings, June 12-15. St. Paul, Minnesota. Dept. of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, MN.

Abusin, A. M., and Rahim, H, A. (1998). Report for Oxfam GB-Sudan.