FASID
Development Assistance Survey Unit (DASU) Study Group Meeting
1. Date： December, 19th, 2008, 12:00-14:00
2. Venue: FASID Seminar Room (4th Floor)
3. Presenter: Mr. Allan E. Reed（Development Counselor, US Embassy/Tokyo）
4. Theme: Conflict in Sudan, USAID program in Sudan and USAID policy towards
Sub-Saharan Africa
5.1

Today’s presentation
In Today’s presentation, Mr, Allan E. Reed, USAID Development Counselor at

the US Embassy/Tokyo, gave a lecture covering an overview of USAID assistance inAfrica, and a history of conflict in Sudan, including his own personal experiences inSudan.
Overview of USAID in Africa.
The U.S. government provides assistance to 47 countries in Sub-SaharanAfrica (Angola, Benin, Burundi, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia,Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia,Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania,Uganda, Zambia) and USAID operates in 23 bilateral missions on that continent. The
annual USAID budget for Africa is around 2 billion dollars.
US foreign assistance goals include helping to sustain well-governed statesthat respond needs of their people, reduce wide-spread poverty, and conduct themselves
responsibly in the international system.

Overall US Government priorities in Africa

include strengthening regional and sub-regional organizations, strengthening regional
security capacity, and strengthening African counter terrorism cooperation capacity.
There are four primary objectives of USAID in assistance to Africa.
- The first is Governing Justly and Democratically
To enhance stability and increase capacity of governments to govern justly, the US
provides support to strengthen Africa’s democratic institutions, to professionalize
security forces, and to promote key reforms.
Resources are also provided to fight corruption, and to work closely with civil society
organizations as emerging constituencies for reform, helping African citizens to holdtheir governments accountable. Resources also improve the administration of justice.

- The second objective is Investing in People
USAID provides support to Africa in meeting health and educational needs sothat people are productive members of society, contributing to economic growth, andengaging in sustainable livelihoods.
In terms of education, USAID promotes the African Education Initiative which
supports training of new teachers, provides more textbooks and new materials,increases scholarships, especially for girls, and increases the capacity of African
education systems to manage the impact of HIV/AIDS on teachers and students.
In terms of health, the Malaria Initiative and the President’s Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are promoted. PEPFAR focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention,treatment and care. Two million HIV/AIDS infected people receive treatment underPEPFAR, there is support for the prevention of 7 million new infections, and support forthe care of 10 million people affected by HIV/AIDS is provided..
-The third objective is Economic growth
To promote Africa’s economic growth, USAID focuses on stimulating private sector
development, increasing African trade competitiveness, and integrating African nations
into the global economy.
Towards those objectives, the African Global Competitive Initiative (AGCI) ispromoted. The AGCI promotes African enterprises by providing technical assistance toadvance export competitiveness. AGCI also improves the agricultural businessenvironment

byremoving

tradeandinvestment

barriers

andencouraging

public/private partnerships.
In addition, science and technology are key to increasing agricultural productivity.
USAID assists government and regional organizations to improve markets, to increase
the capacity of private sector organizations to develop agricultural markets,and helpsbuild physical infrastructure, such as roads for market access.
In terms of sustainable livelihood, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, which deals
with forest degradation and loss of bio diversity by increasing local and regional natural
resource management capacity, is promoted.
- The fourth objective is Humanitarian Assistance
USAID works both to prevent and respond to humanitarian crises across theAfrican continent. The U.S. seeks to raise awareness and support for improved disaster
preparedness, mitigation, and response capacity. Through USAID, significant
emergency humanitarian assistance is provided through the delivery of supplies of food,medical, shelter, and other emergency relief commodities, as well as the services ofdisaster response professionals.

The Historical Background to Conflict in Sudan:
There are many factors involved in the long conflict between Northern andSouthern Sudan.

It is the largest country in Africa and geography has separated

North and South, although the River Nile flows through the country. The North ismostly arid and desert, and the South is savanna grasslands and forests. There is thelargest swamp in the world, the Sudd, that long made it challenging for the North toenter the South. Ethnically, the North is a mixture of Arabs and Africans, and theSouthern Sudanese are Africans. The North has been mostly Muslim, while theSoutherners are Christian or practice traditional religions. The North is far moredeveloped economically than the South, although there is now oil found in the South.
Historically, the two were administered as completely different entities under theAnglo-Egyptian Condominium, and it was only after World War Two that the British
patched the two parts together to become Sudan. Southern Sudanese felt likesecond-class citizens who were discriminated against by the Arabs, and when they saw
independence coming for Sudan without their rights as African Sudanese being
respected, they rebelled and wanted their own independent country. The government inKhartoum dealt harshly with Southern Sudanese and hundreds of thousands of people
fled as refugees when conflict began in 1955. The first war lasted until 1972 andbetween one and two million people died during that war.

My Experiences in Southern Sudan:
In 1966, I went to Gambela, a small village in Western Ethiopia, as a Peace Corps
Volunteer teacher. I found there were 20,000 Southern Sudanese refugees from the war
in Sudan in that district and most of them did not have a place to live and attend school.
To deal with this situation, I started a refugee hostel in Gambela in an old abandoned
coffee warehouse. Ethiopia used to export its coffee through Gambela to Sudan, butwhen the Anya-Nya movement began, Ethiopia stopped exporting coffee that way andthe coffee warehouses became empty, so I opened one for Sudanese refugees. 125
Southern Sudanese refugees came to the hostel and I lived there with them.
After three years, I was approached by a member of the Southern SudaneseAnya-Nya Liberation Movement and I was asked to come into the bush with them andwitness what going on and then to try to get publicity and humanitarian assistance.
Nobody outside Sudan could see what was going on because the Sudanese Government
had closed off the Southern Sudan to outside observors. So in 1969, I walked with agroup of Anya-Nya rebels and ventured into Southern Sudan. I took pictures of theAnya-Nya Liberation army, the destruction civilians suffered from due to attacks by theGovernment of Sudan’s Army, and what life was like for them in their villages and cattle
camps. After I left Southern Sudan, I traveled to Europe to share my experiences and tosee if organizations like the Red Cross would be interested in helping, The WorldCouncil of Churches (WCC) became interested because they were getting emergency
humanitarian aid into Eastern Nigeria (Biafra) during Nigeria’s civil war and theyrecognized the civilian suffering in Southern Sudan was equally serious. They asked me
to do research in Southern Sudan to help start a humanitarian relief effort. A medical
supply program was launched through Uganda. At the same time, I also got theAmerican television company, NBC-TV, interested in making a film about the war. They
asked me to make the film, and so I spent ten months walking with the Anya-Nya over3000 miles in the bush to make the film. That is the film you will see here today.
In 1972, the Addis Ababa peace agreement was signed and the first civil war
ended. Because of my work with refugees in Ethiopia and the uniqueness of experiences
I had with the Anya-Nya movement, the WCC asked me to help refugees return toSouthern Sudan and to organize the reconstruction of schools and clinics which weredestroyed by the war. So I worked for the Sudan Council of Churches in Sudan after thewar, from 1972-1974, and that is where I met my wife, Ayo, who was the Director ofNurses for Southern Sudan. .
However, in 1983, conflict returned. In the late 1970’s, oil was discovered inSouthern Sudan near Bentiu. President Nimeri, under whose government the Addis
Ababa Peace Agreement had been signed which established the semi-autonomous
Government of Southern Sudan, decided to redraw the border between North and Southso that the oil would be considered to be part of the North. The Government of Southern
Sudan objected, because it said the people in Bentiu were Nuers and Dinkas, SouthernSudanese Africans, not northern Arabs. In response, President Nimeri broke the Addis
Ababa Agreement, abolished the Government of Southern Sudan, and redrew theborder. When Southern Sudasnese protested, the Government introduced Islamic Law
and Southern Sudanese further objected to this policy. By 1983, the former Anya-Nyaforces were united under John Garang to create the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement (SPLM) which had as its objective a secular government in Sudan which
would recognize the rights of all Sudanese, Africans, Arabs, Christians, Moslems, andthose who followed traditional religions. The second civil war lasted until 2005, whenthe Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed.
USAID in Sudan
Since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) officially ended theNorth-South civil war, The U.S. Government has been the leading international donor
to Sudan, providing more than $4 billion in assistance.

As part of the United States' commitment to support the peace process, save
lives, increase capacity, and safeguard human rights, USAID programs promotestability, recovery, and democratic reform and provide basic health and education
services to the Sudanese people.

5.2

Q & A Session

USAID engagement in governance issues in Sudan:
USAID works to support the return and resettlement of refugees andinternally displaced people and the transition of the Southern Sudanese people from ageneration of war to peace and to democratic government. To realize this, USAID
supports new Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) institutions to function
effectively and provides significant technical support and training opportunities.
Media program:
USAID has a strong media program in order to help people participate in thedemocratic process. USAID supported the Sudan Radio Services in the South so thatradio broadcasts inform people what peace is and what their government is doing.
USAID also distributes tens of thousands of solar-powered and wind-up radios in rural
areas. Because of the high rate of illiteracy, this enables more people in Southern Sudan
to have access to information.
Civil Society:
Civil society organizations are a key part of the democratic process. USAID
provides support to civil society organizations so that they can play an advocacy rolewith the government and to provide services to people. Local peace building efforts andconflict resolution are also needed because when several million people, refugees andinternally displaced people, come back to re-settle in areas they left many years ago,
conflicts may arise with people who had stayed there over water rights, naturalresources, and pastoral land.
Experience in North and South and issues in Darfur
In May 2004, seven months before the CPA in January 2005, I traveled withJohn Garang to SPLM controlled areas in Southern Sudan where he explained to largenumbers of people in the South what was going on in the peace negotiations. In eachplace, he spent hours to describe in great detail all aspects of every protocol that became
part of the CPA. When asked by people why there should be 6 years after the peace issigned before the Southern Sudan could vote in a Referendum of self-determination onunity with the North or independence for the South, John Garang explained that it willtake time after the end of the conflict for the situation to cool down and for people tounderstand if unity is attractive.

John Garang told the Southern Sudanese that it is

the responsibility of the Northern Sudanese to demonstrate that they can make unity
attractive, because for 50 years of Sudanese history they had made unity sounattractive to the Southerners. John Garang told people that there would be a test to
see if the North understood that responsibility: it was to watch and see what they do inDarfur. JohnGarang’s remarks from nearly five years ago clearly showed that heunderstood the relationship between the conflicts in Darfur and Southern Sudan.
Darfur continues to have serious problems; maybe the CPA would be a good model toapply there.
How the American government responds to the corruption issue:
Southern Sudan is in transition to democratic government and the GOSS isgrappling with how they can be held accountable. John Garang knew there would be a
wealth-sharing protocol in the CPA that provides nearly a half-billion dollars a year inoil revenues for the GOSS. He wanted to see that these resources are not only used forsalaries, but also used for a trust fund for rural government, agriculture, and livestock
development so that more Southern Sudanese benefit. He said that it is very important
to use institutions such as a transparent banking system to manage such issues. That isa difficult challenge for the Southern Sudanese because they have fought a war for morethan twenty years without resources and there was no banking system then. USAID is
helping the new GOSS to establish the Bank of Southern Sudan, to train and staff theMinistry of Finance and Economic Planning, and to support the Anti-Corruption
Commission so that the GOSS can be accountable.
Partnership with donors:
USAID knows the benefit of partnerships and how they can work. When I wasin Zambia as Mission Director, USAID and JICA developed an excellent partnershipthat helped us fight effectively together against HIV/AIDS and malaria. Together,
Japan and the United States were able to do more than either of us could do alone.In
Sudan, USAID does support multi-donor efforts, such as the Multi-donor Trust Fund,through sharing experiences and lessons learned.
Partnership with China:
US priority is for partnerships and democratic transformation. China gives
significant aid to Africa, including to Sudan as well where they have also invested

heavily in oil resources.

Recently, the US established a new position in our embassy inChina, a position like my own as Development Counselor here, to engage with China
and to see how and where we can we collaborate with them on development assistanceissues..
Information in USAID HP
Sub Saharan Africa: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/index.html
Sudan: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/sudan/index.html