Sudan promises international aid to expand from agencies not ousted
May 7, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Government of Sudan said Thursday that it would consider applications from new international aid organization to replace humanitarian gaps created by the departure of 16 aid groups in March 2009, reversing earlier rhetoric to completely “Sudanize” aid operations within one year.
At a meeting today of the High Level Committee formed by a ministerial degree issued Saturday, co-chairs Haroun Lual, Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, and John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator marked a “new beginning” in the dialogue over providing for the people of Darfur, 2.7 million of whom are refugees in the three Darfur states and hundreds of thousands more in Chad.
Also attending the event at Friendship Hall was US Special Envoy Scott Gration, who met earlier Thursday with President Omer Al-Bashir’s adviser Nafie Ali Nafie.
A Sudanese humanitarian official, Hassabu Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, met with a visiting delegation from the U.S. Agency for International Development this week, which was followed on Thursday by the announcement from ruling party official Qutbi al-Mahdi that Sudan would consider application from new American aid groups to work in Darfur.
According to Orla Clinton, a spokesperson of the UN humanitarian coordinating agency (OCHA), the Sudan government at the High Level Committee meeting agreed on ways to implement ministerial decrees on cooperating with aid groups and ensure the safety of humanitarian staff. The Committee was empowered to serve as the central high-level monitoring mechanism for the aid delivery system in Darfur. It will meet again in one month.
The Committee, which included Presidential Adviser Ghazi Salah Eldeen Atabani, also acknowledged “the critical importance of building national Sudanese capacity in order to address the humanitarian and recovery needs of vulnerable populations sustainably,” according to a statement from OCHA. The position represents some continuing rhetorical commitment to the posturing over “Sudanizing” aid operations, which are already staffed almost entirely with Sudanese nationals.
“I think what we’re hearing…is that new NGOs with new names, new logos, if necessary, can come in,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes. “That means there’s an opportunity to exploit some of that expertise and experience that is there and I think that is a welcome degree of flexibility about how it might happen in the future.”
Holmes travels to South Sudan and Darfur on Friday and Saturday.
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AUGUSTINO DENG
Sudan promises international aid to expand from agencies not ousted
Omar Bashir, is playing a game. If he wasn’t playing a game, then he couldn’t have expelled out the 16 NGOs which were been working in Datfur region to serve the insane life of the Darfurian people who were been send to an exile by his force regime in Khartoum.
Omar Bashir, think that he is competent to manage, but in reality, he is wasting time. I don’t know exactly why ICC down low its progress on Omar Bashir,on accusation of being arrested so that the Darfurian people and Southern Sudan can immersed into the impeccable and integrity freedom.