Southern Sudanese women prioritise developing infrastructure

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 6 (PANA) — Southern Sudanese women have demanded the
restoration of the non-existence infrastructure in the area as a
matter of priority for funding ahead of the international donors’
conference for Sudan to be held in Oslo (Norway) next week.

Cattle follow a woman through central Rumbek, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005 in southern Sudan.

More than 50 women drawn mainly from the civil society groups
identified education, healthcare, water, infrastructure and legal
issues among other pressing development issues they said required
urgent funding.

“We see the donors’ conference as an opportunity for us Sudanese
women to be able to articulate critical issues for reconstruction
and also for us to participate in defining the future of our
country,” Anisia Achieng, director of Sudan’s Women’s Voice for
Peace, told a news conference in Nairobi after a consultative
meeting in Nairobi.

She added: “We also hope that since the Sudanese women have
prioritised their issues, we hope and call upon the development
partners to really support and provide resources to make women
issues to be actualised.”

The Sudanese women held the consultative meeting facilitated by
UN Fund for Women (UNIFM) and the National Democratic Institute
(NDI) in the wake of the Nairobi peace agreement signed on 9
January this year and also in the realisation that some critical
areas to be considered for funding are not strong enough on
women’s issues.

The two-day donor meeting in Oslo beginning on 11 April, which
both UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will be attending, is expected to fundraise 7.8
billion US dollars over the next two and a half years for a
recovery and development programme for Africa’s largest country
after 21-years of war.