Sudan and UNDP launch Millennium Goals project

Sept 5, 2005 (Khartoum) — The Sudanese government and
the UNDP Sunday launched a joint programme against
hunger, diseases, illiteracy and other development
challenges facing the country.

“We are happy to begin implementing development projects
following the signing of the peace agreement which will
lead to a promising country living in a welfare State,”
President Omar Hassan el-Bashir said at the launch of
a joint report drafted by Sudan’s International Cooperation
Ministry and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), outlining
steps towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).

The Khartoum government and Sudan People’s Liberation
Army/Movement (SPLA/M) based in the south, signed a major
peace agreement in January to end two decades of a civil that
killed more than two million people, but the country is still
plagued by ethnic conflicts in the western region of Darfur
and in the east.

At Sunday’s ceremony attended by government officials and SPLA/M
officials, Bashir said Sudan could now direct its resources to
improving its economic and social conditions, focusing on
combating poverty.

The UN humanitarian coordinator Manuel Aranda Da Silva said the
country was at a crossroads after the January peace deal
and the prospect of a solution to the Darfur conflict where
two rebel movements are fighting the Khartoum government.

“The economic dividends of peace could be great in such a rich
county. Now, more than in any prior time in Sudan’s history,
the country can invest in development,” he added.

The MDGs, set by world leaders in 2000, include halving hunger and
poverty by 2015.

PANA/ST