 Good afternoon. Welcome to USIP, for what I think is going to be a really interesting presentation and discussion. My name is Andrew Blum. I'm a senior program officer here in the program at USIP. As many of you know, USIP has several strands of work that are focused on Sudan. My role in that broader portfolio is to oversee our Sudan priority grant competition. The first thing I need to do today is deliver some bad news. Amir Idris from Fordham University was supposed to be one of our commenters, had something urgent arise late yesterday and will not be able to make it. He obviously would have brought a very interesting perspective, but we hope with this nice crowd we'll use that time for comments and discussions and use that time productively. I wanted to set a little bit of the context for what you're going to be hearing today. The Sudan priority grant competition has been giving grants to organizations in Sudan working on issues of peace building since 2006. In 2011, the decision has been made to focus our efforts on the issues of the North-South border by launching what we're calling the North-South border initiative. As part of that process, as part of the initiation of that program, we've asked Concordus, International, along with their partners in Sudan, to conduct a conflict assessment of the border. Really looking at what are the conflict dynamics being created by the border? What are the sources of instability? What are the opportunities to promote stability? To help inform us within the grant program about how we can support Sudanese organizations and international organizations to help promote stability along the border. The report that we're going to talk about today is the result of the research that Concordus completed, and I'll let them talk a little bit more about the research process. One of the reasons we asked Concordus to do the research is the really innovative cross-border relations work they're doing along with University of Juba in Sudan at the moment, and some of that work will, has fed into the research you're going to hear about today. This meeting here today is in many ways a follow-up to a two-day workshop we did in Khartoum that was organized by, I want to get this right, the National Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. The National Forum for Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, where we brought senior-level civil society and political leaders from the north, from the south, from the border areas themselves, and presented and got feedback, got input on some of the research that Concordus had completed. We've provided the bios for the speakers, so I'm not going to go into too much detail. We have Chris Milner, who is the research manager for Concordus. We have Benedetta de Alessi, who is one of the key researchers on the team that produced the research. In a moment, I will hand it over to them, and they will present, they will go through their key findings and talk about the research. After that, we'll have Martin Pratt from the International Boundaries Research Unit, an expert on boundaries, and somebody who has worked in and on Sudan as well to comment on the research. After that, we'll have a good amount of time for questions, discussions, and the like. I will emphasize, sort of right away, we have a lot of folks in the room, so when we do start with our comment period, please keep your questions and comments short and to the point. And with that, I will hand it over to Chris. Thank you, Andy. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Milner. I am the research manager with Concordus International. I'm very pleased to be here to present the findings of our research project commissioned by USIP. I will just speak very briefly about the research process, so that you know where what we are telling you today came from. As Andy has said, because of the cameras, we need to speak from the podium. Is that better? I can see you at the back now. Hi, in the cheap seats there. So as we've heard from Andy, the report aims to identify the likely drivers of conflict that are exacerbated by dynamics related to the North-South border in Sudan. We also aim to identify the geographic areas that are most likely to suffer violence as a result of these conflict drivers. And we also aim to outline what government and civil society initiatives are taking place to assist in the management of border-related tensions. So briefly, the report is a result of a desk research and a field research which took place in mid-2010, June, July and August, involving a team of Sudanese and international researchers. It also involved a senior-level workshop in Khartoum, organised by the National Forum on Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, as you've heard. The study is also informed by the Cross-Border Relations Project, which is a partnership between Concordes International and the Centre for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Juba. And in that project, we are facilitating workshops with local community leaders, with civil society organisations and with local administrators along the North-South border. And we're asking them to think about, it's an opportunity for them to think about principles and proposals that they think would help make a border work, would help make the border work to meet their interests. So here's a meeting in Agok, which is Abyeh on the left, involving mainly Dinka Noq participants. And the right-hand photo is a meeting in White Nile State in Kosti with Al-Salaam and Al-Hamda and other groups. The report is not about demarcation of the North-South border. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement sets out a mechanism for delineating and demarcating that line. Instead, the report asks what impact national and local border-related dynamics are having on communities living around the border region and the potential impact on wider peace in Sudan. So much of the report outlines perceptions, perceptions described by population at the border during the field research and during the Concordis CPDS workshops. And these perceptions are important, as we all know. They determine human response, even if they don't necessarily reflect realities. So Concordis International does not necessarily endorse any particular views that you will find represented in the report. So ultimately, we find that national agreement on border related dynamics and border demarcation is absolutely essential for stability in the border lands in the wider Sudan. But it's not necessarily sufficient. And local actors could have the possibility to draw in national actors and other interests into exacerbate conflicts just as national disagreement could generate contestation and violence in the border region. So we hope that this report will generate a greater understanding of the dynamics playing out in the border areas. And we hope it will assist in the generation of policies and development strategies to respond to those conflict drivers so that the border can work for local communities and for national elites. I'll hand over to Benedetta, who will present some of the key findings. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to present some key findings of the research. It would be first a thematic discussion, and then I will go more deeper into the geographical areas that we have examined. The major findings identified after the research are three. The CPA has hardened the North-South divide. The CPA has created the issue of the North-South border by defining the government of South Sudan and the issue of self-determination. But as focus on making the unity attractive instead of supporting also the option of unattractive separation. That has created a situation whereby the mistrust between the parties has exacerbated local conflict along the border. And the border states are the most critical war-affected areas. I will show you later the map, but we have to consider that we have 10 border states, five in the North and five in the South. Among the five border states in the North, three of them are the transitional areas affected by the war that have not received sufficient funds. The National Reconstruction Development Fund, the NRDF, didn't work as expected. The Southern border states are extremely weak and lack of capacity to deal with the border dynamics. And one of the Northern states is at war, is Southern four. So we are talking about states that have not capacity to deal with the border dynamics and decentralization foreseen by the CPA as not materialized. And that has increased mistrust, as we would see during the presentation. There is a great gap between local and national perception along the border. And local community feels that have not received what they had been entitled or they were expecting by the CPA. The disagreement within the presidency over the border demarcation affects, first of all, local communities. Local communities feel that have not been consulted by the technical border committee that has gone around assessing the border. And this is fueling mistrust and creating local conflict as I will explain the area analysis. Security problems along the border are perceived as a national problem but affecting communities at the local level. In the post-CPA era, we have seen reinforcement of conflict drivers along the border. The lack of agreement between the parties over the contested area, the demarcation of the border, has created exactly contested areas where SPLA and South troops have been deployed. And that has increased militarization along the border, in particularly in the central area of unity, ABA, and in the upper Nile peak, as we will see later. And this is a critical post-CPA dynamics. And another critical aspect that we have noticed that the other armed groups, I'm talking about this, I hope you all know more or less the Sudan contest, but the other armed groups that were militias that had been used by the parties during the war, the other armed groups should have been disarmed and reintegrated in the armies after the CPA. That has not happened fully. Officially, it has happened but we have seen an increasing militarization of militias along the border. More dramatically, the tribal militias are a fraction within. So it's very difficult to understand which direction those alligences can take and that affects, first of all, the border areas. We have also seen clashes, witness clashes between SPLA and tribal militias, as was happening during the war, in particular in the Baral Ghazal and unity and central areas, the unity areas. More peacefully is the upper Nile peak. And we have identified also cross-cutting dynamics that we have called conflict drivers, but also findings that affect the stability of the border in the months and in the year to come. First of all, the referendum of self-determination for southern Sudan that has created the problematic of the border. And so it's playing around all the other dynamics we are talking about. Border demarcation is a problem in relation to the land disputes and lack of effective mechanisms to address the land issues. In some cases, as we will see, the border demarcation, the clarity of the map doesn't entail stability of the border. There is an actual problem of the ground, of demarcating the border, because there is a lack of understanding of land use and ownership, different perception of land use and ownership, for instance, in Syria and the Dinka and the newer. And that creates local conflicts on the ground that no mechanism are able to address. The land commission, the state land commission in the southern and three areas after the CPA, have been formed. Some have not even been formed, but they're not functioning. And the police in the states is the creation of the former soldiers, especially in the south. And we can really say that it is completely objective. And the judiciary is very weak. So there is a lack of effective system to address land disputes. Some of the people interviewed on the border, they said that they would have, first of all, try to solve the land problems legally and in the case that it was not possible, they would have required to fighting. The problem of conflict around the border derives from a conflict of unnatural resources, in particular oil, minerals and agriculture. Oil is the major driver of conflicts around the border. And in particular in the area of Iglig, which is in the border between South Dakota Fun and the United States. Minerals are present along the border in the area of Kaffia-Kinji in Blue Nile. And agricultural schemes are resources of upper Nile. This is a very sketchy presentation of the natural resources. But it shows that the importance, the strategic importance that some areas around the border represent for the parties. Militarization and community security is an increasing dynamic. As I said at the beginning, militarization meaning that parties south and SPLA have redeployed along the border. And there is a massive presence of arms and weapons among the civilians, but also within the soldiers themselves. And some of the insecurity that has been generated after the elections, for instance, was coming from soldiers, defectors that have arms and use it. And as the community security bureau and DDR admit, south and SPLA do not have the control of the arms around the border. Migration is a very important dynamic around the border. But contrary to what we think, is not a spread problem all over the border. This research was about identifying and localize issues to identify specific intervention because we cannot address the border as a big general problem. There are specific conflict that can be addressed with specific solutions to reduce their potential. And migration is one of them. There are good relations between nomads in the Upper Nile Peak, in Blue Nile, and in other areas. The problem of migration entails the masssyria and there is a gap descending from southern Kordofan and southern Fure respectively as we will see later and impacting in the grazing area of southern Sudan. And it's only present in those areas where there has been unmet expectation and narrowing of the grazing routes due to the oil and to the war. I will explain that better. The three transitional areas are a very important conflict driver in order for migrants to come. The problem of the transitional areas has not been solved by the CPA. The transitional areas have taken different developments. The CPA has defined as set for a referendum to happen in a BA area. I think I take that for granted but we will discuss about it later as well. And popular consultations to be held in southern Kordofan and southern Blue Nile, the delay of the lack of full implementation of the CPA and the delay of the national elections from the fourth year of the interim period to a few months ago has postponed the definition of the popular consultations problem and therefore linking the process of public consultation to the southern Sudan referendum. And this is a very critical dynamic that was not foreseen by the CPA draft. Moreover, southern Kordofan popular consultation will happen after the southern Sudan referendum whereas Blue Nile popular consultation will happen hopefully in December if everything goes as expected. And that creates different dynamic between the two. The interplay between the process in one area and in the other one is a risk for stability. Citizenship is a major problem that is now being addressed by the parties and has not been solved by the CPA. The citizenship problem entails, for instance, the fate of the SPLA soldiers in the north and the SAF soldiers in the south. The returnees, we have seen an increased dynamic in the upper Nile peak where returns are prevented and there is a great fear of southern unionists resettling in the south and affecting the referendum option. One thing I haven't said before is that the referendum on self-determination is not exactly a free decision of the people of southern Sudan. We have seen a lack of critical thinking, especially around the border in the areas we have visited whereby people have links, close links to the population in the north and they take, they don't even consider the option of unity, but when you talk about them and the implication of separation, they clearly haven't thought about all the possibilities including possible hard border that will block the roots of goods from between the north and the south. The almost majority of the trade happening in the border areas is conducted by northern traders. Northern traders interviewed in unity state, for instance, have admitted that in December they will go north back to the Gadare for Khartoum, wherever they come from and that will create a great gap for the people in southern Sudan. Those are all issues that need to be addressed. The idea of the CPA demarcation was that the demarcation of the north-south border should have happened in the pre-interim period. That has not happened. That has had a great impact on key CPA benchmark. As I said before, the redeployment of the troops, SAF and SPLA, has happened in contested areas. That has increased national mistrust and militarization in those areas. Today, with five months left before the referendum, parties disagree on the importance of the demarcation of the north-south border for the referendum to happen. According to the NCP, the referendum depends on demarcation of the border for the SPLM. This is not a prerequisite for the referendum to happen. The SPLM is firm saying that the referendum has to happen the 9th of January 2011. The border committee has submitted recommendation to the presidency of the border, the assessment of the north-south border. They have identified 80% of non-contested areas and 20% of contested areas. But it is very unclear what this 20% means. The disagreement is between five or four areas along the border. The approach of Concordes has been to understand what are the conflict-prone areas affected by local dynamics? What is the perception of the people? Some of the areas, even if they are not contested, they have problematic on the ground and they will be contested in the moment of demarcation. We have also tried to understand the internal state dynamics and their effect on the border stability. That will be in the report, much better analyzed. Today, I want to give you a sketch of the conflict-prone priority areas that we have identified on the border. Again, this is not a demarcation report at all. We just want to give a better understanding of facts, reporting facts that we have assessed on the ground. I would start from the west. The first contested areas is the area between southern Furn and western Baragazal. Some people call it Raja area, but this is imprecise because Raja is part of the south and that has not been defined yet. We call it by the names of the major cities, villages, Kaffiokinches and Ofralnath. This area is a no-man's land, a stateless area contested between southern Furn and western Baragazal, given to southern Furn in the 60s and never returned back. Even though the Addis Ababa agreement had decided that the areas belong to the south and should have been returned, but that has not happened. The same dynamic is happening today. There is no willingness from the side of the north to return the area to the south, but Gauss has taken an assertive politics and has not occupied, has entered the area. The danger dynamic in this enclave is that both SPLA and SAF are present and that combines with increasing militarisation and possible presence of other armed groups from international countries and depends very much on the increasing militarisation of south, therefore. The national contestation leads to militarisation and the potential of the area. The area is known for having an economic potential, copper and uranium, and in fact those resources are not really used by anyone. So there is a lack of, like, missed revenues and opportunities both at the state and the national level. And this area needs to be monitored because it can be both to local and national stability in case national dynamics change. And a recent conflict dynamic which we have witnessed was a conflict between SPLA and southern tribes. There is a gap in the area that is a new dynamic that has never happened before. Just to say that how insecurity in the north can affect also dynamic along the border. The second area that is related to this one is still bordering southern food is the northern Baral Ghazal. It's called the Safa'a area. As you see in the map, it's the 14 miles area south of the Baral Arab or Qir river. It's contested this dynamic is between the social, the difference between social and administrative boundaries. The area was, in 1924, was given to the north to allow for migration of Missouri and there is a gap from the north in the area. And after the CPA has been signed, the SPLA has entered the area again on the idea that the border is the river itself and has provoked restrictive access to the northern tribes. But the issue has been solved and that is a positive example. Has been solved thanks to the capacity and history also of the governor of northern Baral Ghazal and the support of the governor of southern Sudan to solve issues with the historical relation with the northern tribes. There have been two major conferences in 2008 to 2010 with the two tribes and so far the situation is holding. However, the increasing instability in southern food and southern Codofan is a threat to the local stability created by these agreements. Southern Codofan unity. This is potentially the major conflict risk along the north-south border. As you see, the area north of unity, as you see in the map, is contested. In particular, the villages of Iglig and Karasana up to the Calak in southern Codofan are claimed by people of unity, Pariang County, which is the northern county in unity state. The issue has been determined mainly after the PCA ruling of ABA. As narrow down the area, you can see Chris will explain better ABA later. As you see the rectangle on the left of this arrow. ABA PCA ruling has narrowed down the area of ABA and that has left Iglig in a sort of territorial dilemma whereas the NCP believe that the PCA ruling automatically gave Iglig to southern Codofan. The people in unity say that the issue has not been solved and therefore it should be resolved within the presidency. It is an issue between oil and the land about stable resources and mobile resources across the border. Who has the land ownership over the oil in the area? Iglig is one of the major oil fields in Sudan even though his capacity is reducing vis-à-vis an increasing capacity of the Melute basin in Upper Nile. It is still an important symbolic issue as well. When we asked people also in ABA, in Bentu, in the Pariang County, in unity state, would you renounce to Iglig for the sake of southern Sudan stability? They say no because this is our land. This different perception of the land between the border communities is also due to national mistrust and the fact that the border between the north and south after the referendum can become a closed border and the increasing militarization show that the descent of the nomads like the Masiriya nomads is more difficult. In the last two years, Masiriya coming from the north had been impeded entering in some of the localities of unity because they were carrying arms. And Masiriya on the other hand, they don't want to disarm to enter the states because they don't trust security capacity of unity state. And what we have to say about unity and southern Kodafan state, there is a lack of capacity or commitment to address conflicts as opposed to northern Baragazal situation seen before. The situation in these states between unity and southern Kodafan is problematic and not properly addressed. It's not a lack of reconciliation and effort. It's a lack of implementation of the recommendations, lack of state capacity and commitment to give compensations and address the problem. Abya Yere, I think Chris will talk about it. Thanks, Benedetta. Before I say something about the Abya area, I think I may risk repetition a touch, but I'd like to just inject at this point a little bit of explicitly the community of perceptions that were offered to Concordis International through our workshops and through this period of field research. So I think it's worth emphasising that the populations of northern unity state first have deep concerns about the land ownership issue. The Dinka panel who are living essentially in this top triangle of unity state just north of Bentu perceive themselves to have been squeezed southwards in numerous successive waves of displacement since the 1960s, 1964. Their primary concern is the ability to resettle in the land which is currently Hedglige and Karasana inside this contested area. They're extremely concerned that they haven't been consulted by the Border Demarcation Committee despite claiming that they have customary knowledge, particularly in institutions of the traditional authorities as to where the border was in 1956, the date outlined in the CPA for the line of the north-south border. So we have a primacy of local interests. Many of the administrators in northern unity state were members of the SPLA during wartime. Many of them expressed that they joined the movement because of local concerns. They went to Ethiopia to pick up a weapon not because they had a belief in a national revolutionary struggle or a vision for Nusudan. First and foremost, it was to do with preventing cattle raiding from what they perceived to be aggressive nomadic communities. So I think it's really worth underlining the primacy of local interests. And the same thing, some of the nomadic communities who were involved in the conflict in Sudan would have reportedly negotiated with SAF to restrict their sphere of operation to areas which concerned their migration routes. So again, they were fighting part of a national picture but they were fighting to guarantee their local concerns. But basically in this area, we find that the same issue is in place for the bull Nuer and Dinkai law in western northern unity state. And they have similar perceptions. They will not be satisfied, or they say they will not be satisfied unless they can resettle land which is currently in a contested area. So the point here that we're trying to bring out is that national agreement does not necessarily satisfy the interests of local actors. And there's a history of fragmentation, history of factionalization in this area does mean that there is a potential for local actors to compete for what they see as local interests and to destabilize the local region and draw in national conflict actors. So in this area, communities say that the conflict mitigation mechanisms have almost completely collapsed. And despite stressing a history of cooperation. So it's important also to defragment some of these nomadic communities in particular. And this is something that southern communities are quite good at doing. They acknowledge that there's not a mass, not every single member of a nomadic community is a threat to their security. And indeed, when I was in Abye, there was a delegation of Missaria came to Abye town and said we're not part of the instability that's moving in northern Abye. We would like to open some dialogue about the border issue there. But ultimately these communities are saying that they want clear regulatory frameworks to facilitate trade and movement and peaceful coexistence in this area. Such as joint border courts and joint mechanisms for managing security. I should briefly say something about what Missaria said in the Mujlad area. So this is north of the Abye area. And their primary concern was the potential internationalization of the border and the effect this might have on their ability to graze in unity, war, and Abye. And they're particularly concerned with the potential of the Abye referendum to further reduce their access. And rumors and the recent clashes and restricted access since the CPA to unity state and war upstate has reinforced these fears. And their historical experience opposed to this Abye agreement as well does little to reassure them that their grazing rights will be respected as outlined in the CPA and as outlined in the PCA ruling. So the Missaria feel let down by the CPA. They say that they resent both the NCP for not recognizing their contribution during the war time. And since the CPA was signed they say the loss of political and economic influence in Cordefan through the removal of West Cordefan state, their traditional homeland, has further marginalized them from national politics. And the grazing rights continue to be affected they say by agricultural expansion, environmental change, and wider economic changes which are diversifying livelihoods. And many of those who were former fighters have since the CPA lost some of the benefits of the war economy which have not been replaced by employment opportunities and alternative livelihoods. So there's a huge amount of discontentment and perceptions of marginalization on both sides of the border and both of these sets of interests will need to be addressed. So briefly on Abye the ruling of the permanent court of arbitration in the Hague on Abye delinxed the issue of oil from implementation of the Abye protocol. But the importance of the Abye area is not diminished it really created an additional problem of hedgelage to one side. And in the context of national negotiations on wealth sharing and territory and citizenship and other issues for post referendum period Abye remains a significant issue on the table. The Abye referendum itself is a potential trigger for conflict either if it occurs or if it's delayed. Various Missouri groups have reportedly armed themselves both in northern Abye and further north. Some of these are independent some of these are independent and have resentment towards the south and the northern governments some are aligned with SAF and some have joined the SPLA. But either way large group of Missouri have said that if they are not able to participate in the referendum then they will be willing to destabilize the process. Again this is not taking Missouri as a whole it has been made by a number of groups in various all Missouri congresses. So in terms of the Abye referendum we have other exacerbating issues. The resettlement of Dinkhanok into Abye is accelerating and the Abye administration has a plan to resettle these groups in the northern half of Abye where there are a number of Missouri residents and at the same time reportedly a huge number of Missouri are planning to also resettle in the same area. So conflict, local conflict over land and in the context of high tensions could easily spill over into violence around the referendum period. So I think that's all I'd like to say Abye and I'll pass it over to Benedith. So we continue the sorry, the presentation and we finish also with the Upper Nile area. The Upper Nile area has four areas of disagreement that we have found on the ground and also correspond to the national some of them to the National Border Committee finding the first area on the left is the Kaka area on Manio County and on the top bordering South Okorafan and Wainile is the McGanis Mountain. The issue is similar here like the northern nomads have been settled in the areas in the last century and they're used to live there. There is no clear disagreement about the maps in particular in Kaka area is a practical problem of settlement and use of resources from the south of northern communities and this is due also to historical boundary changes like in the 20s that have given in Kaka areas access to the Nile, to the Nuba people but then that agreement has been has been changed to give the area back to Upper Nile to the south. The exploitation of resources from the south from the side of the northern has been a common finding in Upper Nile and moreover people in the south say that the exploitation is supported by the presence of SAF and the militarization of the area. There is local mistrust and it's clear also exacerbated again by the position of the Shiluq after the CPA. Shiluq live on the left side of the Nile river in four counties, localities in the Upper Nile state. Increasingly after the CPA there have been clashes between the Shiluq and the Dinka where the Shiluq feel marginalized in the national context that over extra power of the Dinka and at the last election the issue has been the conflict has increased due to the creation of a new political party led by the former SPLA Ministry of Foreign Affairs Lama Kohl and that has augmented and created further tribalization, ethnic polarization in the area that is very critical. The position of the Shiluq in the referendum time is also a dynamic to monitor. The other border contested areas probably the most problematic in Upper Nile is the northern peak, the area between rank and White Nile. Both SAF and SPLA are deployed in the line. You see the horizontal line at Jordan-Wintow we go a bit quicker because we have lack of time. The conflict are resourced based in these areas. There is an increasing militarization and the problem of local community, peaceful coexistence historically that has been damaged by the presence of SAF and SPLA in the areas until an agreement over the land is not found the mistrust of the local level augments and that can fool into the national conflict quite easily. Last, the problem of the border between Upper Nile and Blue Nile. The top area of the triangle of Gully between Blue Nile, Sinar and Upper Nile. Apparently there is a national agreement for this area which is an agricultural area scarcely populated. But there is a potential contestation over the demarcation on the ground and is also supported by internal state dynamics played between Blue Nile and Upper Nile. Blue Nile as we have said is a transitional area that will be holding the proper consultation process and according to the development of that process and possible occupation of the Blue Nile by SAF the relation between Blue Nile and Upper Nile can deteriorate. Finally, the area of Shalyal feel in the border between Blue Nile and Upper Nile is an interesting area where there is no disagreement over the maps but the Udu communities in the 50s has been displaced several times and is now living along across the border. There is not much talk about it there is sort of a taboo to discuss about these issues there is the risk that the actual demarcation on the ground and in the case of separation of southern Sudan after the referendum, Udu communities will want to belong to the south and that will create local problem and their faith will also depend on the support of whether the Blue Nile will be controlled any what way by SAF or SPLA in the months to come and this I said I don't know if you want to add So, those are the major findings and to conclude just a few comments and to highlight issues that we can talk about and you will find in the report that national agreement cannot preclude local interest the negotiations between the parties the post 2011 referendum negotiations unfortunately they don't include discussion on the pre-referendum dynamics including the ABA voters, the popular consultation and the North-South border so the CPA outstanding issues are not discussed and there is no much clarity over the process and people on the ground feel the gap between them and their leaders both in Khartoum and in Juba so whatever agreement is coming out from the parties and now the recent meeting within the presidency on the 29th of August that demarcation of the non-contestidaries will start immediately has to involve the local actors and the next suggestion will be information of state border committees to work alongside the national border committees involving local population the other major message that we can give at the end is like we cannot tackle the border issue as a big problem but we need contextualized actions and as soon as possible to reduce the potential of conflict of the area Thank you I think it's better if you come to the podium Thank you Andrew for the invitation to participate in this seminar this afternoon and I'd like to begin by congratulating Concordis International and its researchers on an informative, challenging sometimes rather sobering but ultimately very constructive report and when you have the opportunity to read it I would certainly try to find some time to digest the findings and recommendations that are included in it My brief for this afternoon is not to comment directly on the report there are elements of the report that I would speak about I guess during the discussion session but I was asked today to talk a little bit about the wider context of international boundary making and the challenges of cross-border management and so I'm just going to make a few general points and perhaps touch on one or two elements of the report's findings which resonate because I suppose my first thought is the challenges facing Sudan in the establishment of a border of whether it's an international border a harder internal border within a unified state are not unique many of the findings of the report are things that we who spend our lives looking at international boundaries see over and over again around the world boundaries can be a challenge not just for states that are emerging from conflict and states which are dealing with poorly defined colonial boundaries but they can be a challenge even for long established states with good relations it might surprise you that very few of the world's international boundaries are perfectly defined and by perfectly defined I mean they are delimited in an unambiguous way in other words there is a clear legal definition that allows that boundary to be described either through geographical coordinates or maps or some form of description very few are defined unambiguously and even fewer are clearly marked on the ground so that the inhabitants of border areas know where they are but even where you do have a clear delimitation and appropriate demarcation for the landscape through which the border runs that doesn't guarantee that the boundary is going to be a success delimitation and demarcation are only the start of the boundary making process it's important firstly to maintain a boundary if it is marked on the ground so that it doesn't become blurred and contested and all too often in Africa this is what we have seen boundaries were originally marked to some extent on the ground but over time lack of maintenance has meant that the boundary has become fuzzy and that very often leads to disputes down the line but even more important than maintenance is the management of a boundary the approach that neighbouring states take towards the boundary and the border and I distinguish the boundary which is the legal line and the border and the border land which surrounds it there's somewhat different concepts and I'm happy to discuss them in more detail during the discussion but what you do with the border once it has been established is the critical thing in determining whether it will be a success and the main challenge for any pair of neighbouring governments is to develop a cooperative management regime that both meets the requirements of the states and as far as possible doesn't infringe on the rights, aspirations and legitimate interactions with the inhabitants of the border area Bernadette mentioned the sense of marginalisation among the populations of the border states of the north-south border and this is very, very common around the world that people in border areas geographically almost by definition they are marginalised politically and economically they also feel marginalised not involved in the process of establishing the boundary and without their input and agreement at least to the principles of establishing an international boundary there is a very strong chance of failure down the line no matter how much money and technical resources governments throw at the process of defining the line in the first place unfortunately developing an effective management regime is far easier said than done I wish I could bring an example of effective border management but even in the west states struggle to co-operate to apply the appropriate resources both human material and financial to the problem management falls into a variety of categories first and foremost we have the question of access and security and in some ways they are two sides of the same coin access management is trying to facilitate the legitimate interaction of people goods and services ideas flowing across borders security management is about preventing unwanted people goods and ideas from crossing boundaries all states have legitimate security interests it's part of what makes a state and the government most states agree that trying to keep borders as open as possible is also desirable but it's often very difficult to reconcile the desire for openness with the need for security there's questions of infrastructure management and that applies doubly when you are dividing an existing state where the infrastructure of roads sewerage telecommunications were previously considered part of a single state and suddenly you're dealing with an infrastructure that somehow needs to be managed by two states there's resource management and Bernadette mentioned that oil is one of the main drivers of conflict in Sudan also access to water and grazing areas is another element of managing trans boundary resources it's incredible how common it is for natural resources to straddle international boundaries and of course everybody on both sides wants to maximize their access to those resources it's perfectly normal states should also be thinking if possible about managing the environment questions of pollution maintaining biodiversity for some states even issues of tourism in border areas perhaps not so much in Sudan at the moment but certainly environmental management is often tacked on to the question what do we do about managing our borders when it comes to developing strategies a wide range of factors need to be taken into account there's the history and the legal status of the boundary itself which may create legal blocks to certain management approaches fundamentally there's the physical and particularly the human geography of the border landscape it's all too easy when looking at maps of remote parts of the world to forget that boundaries run through real physical and human landscapes and people's lives are affected by these lines and I come here as a geographer and what I usually do in presentations on this kind of thing is provide a long list of reasons why geographical expertise is important in boundary making and border management I will just make it as a simple statement now but we are dealing with real landscapes and the better we understand those landscapes particularly the human landscape but also particularly in areas where there are complex river systems as there are along much of the north south Sudan border the physical landscape is very important as well national and regional political priorities obviously have to be taken into account as do the relations across the either existing or potential boundary and the available resources it's all well and good coming up with a wonderful border management plan but if you don't have the people the technical resources and particularly the financial resources to implement those plans they are bound to fail in the long run whatever strategy is adopted it will affect the nature of the borderland and if I can manage this I just want to put up a slide which depicts four okay perfect for types of borderland that were identified by the American historian Oscar Martinez his research was based on the Mexico United States borderland but I think the model is one which applies to many borderlands around the world or at least we can identify some of the issues and he described alienated borderlands which this is the hard border sometimes even a physical separation of two states with almost no borderland at all because there is very little interaction and then we go through coexistence interdependence and finally integration where there's almost complete freedom of movement across the border and of course the borderland itself becomes broader and more dynamic as a result of increasing flows very few states in today's world conform to the alienated model or the integrated model most fluctuates somewhere between coexistence and interdependence it's not important to say where does Sudan fit on this continuum simply want to suggest that the strategies that have developed will have an impact and the more secure the border is the less likely the borderland is to flourish I would also suggest and this again echoes something Bernadette has said is that strategies for borderland management are almost certain to vary along the length of the boundary, even short boundaries but particularly where we have 2,000km as we do in the case of the north-south Sudan border the different physical human, political, cultural contexts mean that different local approaches may be needed there is no one size fits all solution there is an initiative taking place across the African continent known as the African Union border program, some people here may be familiar I'm happy to talk a little bit more about it later on but the vision of this program is to turn Africa's borders into bridges not barriers when I sit at meetings relating where this vision is repeated frequently I often think it seems rather fanciful but it is important to remember that while borders can be and certainly are in the context of Sudan's sources of friction even conflict, there are also lines where people meet, trade and exchange information ideas, they are dynamic vital and sometimes creative features of our landscapes border areas are often misunderstood and feared by central elites and therefore they tend to get treated with a heavy and sometimes clumsy hand and what is clearly desirable to main peace and security in border areas attempts to eliminate all potential sources of friction are likely to be counterproductive and push us towards the alienated border and model but having said that of course it is possible to think of scenarios in which for example demilitarized zones along particular contested sections of border may be established demilitarized zones neutral zones, international zones have all been tried around the world with varying degrees of success over the years the key element in ensuring that they are successful is political will and competent administration and those are not always readily available there are models within Africa where there are zones of shared grazing rights and in particular a 1970 border agreement between Ethiopia and Kenya established a regime for transboundary grazing rights the details of these agreements are often overlooked because they tend to be included in appendices to rather dry treaties but there are models out there that can be looked at in terms of managing access to resources and also for bringing borderland communities together we see in the report examples of local initiatives to try and resolve local differences and I think that is a crucial element of any form of boundary making border management approach and I think I'll stop there because I'm sure we're going to have a very fruitful discussion thank you Thank you to Ben and Dana and Chris for a detailed look at what's in the report and very much to Martin for that broader perspective which I think is quite important we do have some time for questions if you do have questions please come to the microphone it's USIP's I'll practice to give the first opportunity for questions and comments to representatives from the embassy or to the mission Mr. Ambassador if you would like to make a comment the microphone is Thank you Mr. Blum Thank you USIP and I would like to congratulate the presenters for the informative presentation they have made and which was my view as fair as could be I come from southern Sudan I think many of you might have noticed and I represent the government of national unity so my comments would be very limited but I have lived in some parts of the areas of conflict I lived in Kaka in 1986 and I have seen the spillover of the conflict especially among the communities and while I was there there were communities from the source of the fund that had some understanding with the Shiluk population around Kaka some of them could come during the twice season collect what we used to call Gamarabic I now call it Gam Sudan this is not to be biased to anybody because there will be different in southern Sudan and they would exchange some grain with the population there I mean there was harmony in the relations and I would not say that of Abye although I know that long ago Paramount Chief had some good understanding with Paramount Chief Babonimir in terms of managing their community relations in sharing water and other resources so the Misiriya would come around the Kyr that border with their animals at that time our equipment the war weapons we had so destructive as the ones we have today the collection co-op and the game three and so people could come with their weapons there was no problem there was no conflict after the grazing period was over so the Misiriya would go back and come the next year people celebrating the Dinka would go to the Misiriya land they would be welcome and they would stay when it was wet in southern Sudan apparently things have changed I hope and wish that as God has put us to live together in this area we need to manage ways and means to continue to live whether there is freedom or there is unity because even today we are one country and yet we have some conflict so I only hope for the proper management which is the concern and interest of all the political leaders from both sides of the border so I only hope and pray that we arrive at this solution I have no particular recommendation to make but it is just the wish unless one of my staff would want to add a comment because this might not be fully representing my embassy view then I would ask if you may want to make a comment no more comment thank you very much thank you if you do have a comment begin to make your way to the microphone please let us know who you are and if you have somebody in particular you would like to ask the question to please let us know despite the challenges of our camera in the back I am going to ask the panel to stay seated Mr. Dixon Peter Dixon with Concord is international I would just like to take this opportunity not only to thank the United States Institute of Peace for allowing us to do this work and enabling this work to happen but as importantly to emphasize what this report is and is not what it is not is a report by a think tank or even an advocacy group providing neat policy solutions or demands that's not what we've been trying to do it's a very focused report trying to unpack the issues and drivers of conflict in the border areas in order to inform and assist future conflict mitigation and even transformation in Sudan's future so I would just like to be very clear about that and to thank USIP for allowing us to do this work Thank you Peter That actually answered part of my question but my name is Lisa Freeman I'm from the Alliance for Peacebuilding and I was just wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail about the methodology you used to conduct the analysis and does Concordis use a specific framework for conflict assessment and then often it does seem that there is a disconnect between really excellent analysis like this and then translating it into strategies for peacebuilding so who's the target audience and what do you hope that they'll do with it Thank you very much I'll respond to that So we actually used a hodgepodge of different strategic conflict assessment techniques The basic principle was preliminary so bringing in people who had expertise in economics, political science history and obviously Sudan but broadly you could say we followed something like different strategic conflict assessment model but we didn't as Peter said really take it to the next level and look at in the report However the audience is both Sudanese policymakers who may find this of use in considering challenges in their country and also the international donor community who are doing a relatively good job of attempting to coordinate their responses to these challenges but the policy definition and generation is is left to others to a great extent and we're trying to sign post priority areas and issues The work from the recommendations that are coming out of the Concordes Cross-Border Relations project on the other hand are specifically aimed at informing specific forums in Sudan the negotiations of post referendum arrangements including the Board of Governors forum the Tamizic process including the African Union's mediation efforts and including bodies like the South Sudan referendum task force and the National Constitutional Review Commission in Khartoum and those recommendations are being we have additional resources to develop recommendations into implementable mechanisms to achieve the kind of models that the Board of Communities are talking about so there's a distinction between Concordes' broader work and the functions of this report obviously we'll also inform UCIP's forthcoming ground-making program It's an interesting question because we actually talked quite a bit about whether there should be sort of clear on this report and our conclusion at the end of it was those recommendations aren't often worth all that much and we asked instead for sort of Concordes to show their work, educate us and then we'll take it from there those of us who are able to implement projects because a lot of times I believe those recommendations and reports are sometimes quite facile Please Dr. Cascuino, I'm with the U.S. Department of State I think there is a tendency sometimes certainly not by this panel but others when the border is viewed to really see it as a conflict between nomadic tribesmen the Rizigot or the Missouria and subtle people whether it's the Dinko or the Noir or others I think one point that was made by Bernadette is that indeed there are areas of the border where it is interfactional by different groups within the south and whether that's the Dinka and the Shilik or others certainly in the last year what one is seen in southern Sudan has been a dramatic increase in interfactional fighting so my question really is as you look at drivers of conflict looking at those interfactional flash points what do you see particularly if there is a vote for independence after the referendum how important are they and just any thoughts on mitigation and what has worked in the past say year or so It's a very good point and in the report is the internal state dynamics are analyzed in detail but we didn't have time here one of the the faction is within southern Sudan former other armed groups for instance the SSDF some of the generals in the SSDF have allied with SAF and some with the SPLA and they still maintain control territorial control sometimes very limited one sub-clan of the Noir extremely limited but they still still have an impact and that has happened after the elections with generals like George Ator, David Yahio, and John Gray even Galois Guy in unity in unity states due to unmet expectation, political expectations after the CPA so the CPA has generated political and not military expectations but have not been met and therefore there is an increasing faction as you said is a serious conflict risk in particular in unity and upper nine state we think one of the dynamic we see there has been within upper nine region which comprises unity upper nine and John Gray massive intervention in John Gray state whereas upper nine state has been considered a peaceful one and new dynamics are emerging and there is a lack of intervention there. The Shilu and Dinka conflict has been addressed recently by the new form state in upper nine the governor is a Noir the deputy governor is a Maban and they this is seen as a positive development and from the past and they might be able to neutrally address the Dinka-Shilu conflict and the peace commission is also addressing that generally the peace commissions in the state are quite weak and not functioning properly and they follow the governor in unity state that is quite clear there is a collusion between the government and the conflict resolution capacity leading to a failure of intervention there are many we have not many sorry few good local organization of youth in particular that have intervened in upper nine a Shilu Shilu youth organization Noir also supported by international organizations they are quite good but of course it's not at the level of the needs of intervention yeah my name is Mike Santos I'm with the peace and conflict resolution program at American University and my question is relatively simple at the national level I feel increased border integration can have a lot of benefits but as is the case with the European Union however in what ways do you think that increased border integration can make local populations feel marginalized how can increased integration make local populations feel more marginalized no no it's a good question thank you very much it's a good question it's not something that we've considered in the great detail I think because the benefits of cooperation have been very clearly expressed by all those that we've met in the border lands and the desire for peaceful coexistence and the benefits that freedom of movement and goods and access to services and access to individuals on each side of the border can bring do you want to respond or maybe you have an idea well I'm not sure I fully understood the question because my premise would have been that increased if I was putting it I would say increased integration in border lands would help people to feel less marginalized rather than more marginalized so perhaps I didn't quite understand what you were driving at would you have another framing the question well for example at the national level the disillusion and the integration of borders between places like Germany and Denmark at the national level had a lot of economic benefits but locally a lot of people especially along the Danish coastline have felt marginalized by German migrants so I was just thinking in the Sudan in what ways do we see situations like that manifested does that make a little more sense yeah I mean does the does the integration who sort of threatened or maybe fearful within the border communities what have you heard about that sort of maybe from the workshops for instance one aspect that may be relevant is the is the perception of particularly southern communities in these areas of settling of nomadic communities in what's perceived to be their land and that in principle they welcome normally the idea that anybody can live within their territory but then I suppose in that case there are suspicions that once settlement has taken place further claims may follow regarding land and that's a concern we have we have heard of I have to say that all the perceptions that we have heard stress the potential benefits of integration at the border lands and nothing's coming up to the surface at this moment that would that would that I can offer I was thinking okay next question please I mean I think that's telling I think what they're hearing is telling in regard to that question please yeah my name is Emmanuel I'm from Sudanese American from Phoenix Arizona and we having a border issue there in the south so I've seen a lot of Mexican people claiming that Arizona Texas and California is their land so what is a state that has been taking in the Sudan border issue to avoid this kind of complex is there any state to avoid this kind of complex in the future at the national level well that's probably the main problem that we're talking about the north-south border or the international borders the international borders is well I'm not an expert on the international borders what the issue between there is particular issue between the Kenyan and the south and Sudan borders on the eastern equatorial side this is a contested and not yet addressed area and in the post referendum negotiations there is a working group dealing also with those international treaties and relations but I don't think specifically addressing the international border issue which is still within the precedence but I don't want to say to be mistaken but yeah there isn't agreements such as good cooperation agreement like for grazing rights with international borders like between the newer and the Ethiopia thing have not yet been discussed for our knowledge to our knowledge but there must be things we said about the north-south border are also relevant for the international borders definitely for example there's certainly some cooperation around smuggling issues between up in Ireland and Ethiopia they are involving it's a state level cooperation mechanism regular monthly meetings but again I don't know the details of that it's a very porous border the international one with the Central African Republic it's very probably won't be demarcated either soon come over here I'm John Gates I work for NGA the national geospatial intelligence agency last September a year ago I was asked by the office of the special envoy to make a trip to Sudan to see if I could help both parties in the implementation of the four points that were decided on the PCA so I made this several day trip down the cartoon in Juba and met with both sides and because I've been involved in border demarcation in Latin America before and worked with the State Department with some difficulty I met with both sides but not in one room and we talked about the technical aspects of implementation of the PCA, the four points and also offered at that time what other things the US government could bring to bear as far as satellite imagery and GIS technology and geodetic surveys and that kind of thing that the international community could provide also what could the US bring to bear but it was with great difficulty that I actually met with both parties and try to eke out some of the information that we could bring back into the informal plan one of the things that just a comment that I've heard before is they have 80% of it figured out and there's only 20% just based on the experience I've had in the past is it's probably not 80% it's a number much lower than that and the amount of time that's going to take to actually implement this for the whole boundary will be years if not decades so when I looked at the kind of the initial time frame of a couple of months to put in Abye they're really it's going to take a lot longer and we were getting into rainy season and all that so nothing has happened with Abye because of the security situation lack thereof as a panel is when you talk to the locals and I agree this has to be a solution that's not only comes from the national level it has to be at the local level what is the perception of what makes a good boundary between two states do the dinka feel that it has to be more of a physical manifestation with border posts every so often and what that distance might be do the missiri I think it shouldn't be anything it just should be some numbers on a map I just wanted to get your perception on that well there's a rumor going around in Mujlad and Babanousa that the SPLM do in fact want to build an electric fence along the northern boundary of Abye on the 1010 line which would have the capability of killing humans and animals so there are different ideas about what a border should be and that's obviously not one which is being presented in public by any or I imagine in private by any party in Sudan one of the fundamental basic principles for many of the southern communities is that the land ownership rights are recognised and beyond that the boundary they seem to be happy that the boundary can be anything so they would welcome a very soft border with customary management of migration routes if there was no challenge to that land ownership principle but if that isn't going to be if they don't perceive that to be recognised then they're very happy to promote the idea of a very very hard border a military border even a wall you know we've heard that presented so I think the kind of border which they would look to they would advocate for depends upon how they perceive the the other side is going to respond to the situation I don't know if someone else wants to come in John I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the technical challenges that are likely to be faced but for me I guess one of the issues that arises out of the whole question of establishing a border is what even at the highest level is being expected I mentioned in my comments the need for geographical expertise and I think that is something that was profoundly lacking when both the CPA and the AVI protocol were drawn up I think there was a belief that somewhere there would be a clearly a lovely set of maps with the boundaries between the provinces in 1956 clearly marked even more fancifully that there was a magic map that would show the areas of the New York Dinka territories as they were in 1905 I mean we literally had people coming to Durham where there's a big archive of Sudan material saying where's the map, the 1905 map and it just simply didn't exist there wasn't any geographical knowledge among the western cartographers at the time of the areas that would make it possible to say these are the territories of a particular group but based on that false premise that there was somehow maps already in existence there was this notion that a boundary could be established relatively quickly and it wouldn't cause too many difficulties because it was a recovery exercise this was the boundary we can recreate it today that's simply not the case and the CPA really provided no guidance at all to the people who were tasked with identifying the boundary as it was in 1956 and I don't think a whole lot of thought has been given to the process of how to fill in the gaps where existing mapping is not helpful and in general the discussion is confused I still don't know whether the notion of physically marking the boundary on the ground demarcation is what was intended when the word demarcate was used in the CPA I can't imagine that it was I don't know why a boundary would need to be physically marked on the ground in order to determine who gets to vote in a referendum it seems an extraordinarily complex way of going about figuring out who's entitled to vote but the language has never been disentangled and still today the technical committee is arguing over whether it is required to physically demarcate the boundary on the ground before a vote in place so it's a big problem I think this issue of both sort of where is the boundary but also perhaps more importantly sort of what is the boundary is the way that both Concordus and USIP is approaching this issue when we're interacting with the local community I think we should have time for just two more comments I'm sorry to the folks that are lined up but please sir You think I should speak to this? Yes, please I know It's a new age New age We don't have that in Malacal where I come from I just came from Malacal and I'm still smelling Malacal It is my name You want my name? Sure My name is Ezekiel Kudjok I quite adore I am a referendum a preacher in the church not many of them are here but I am impressed by the attendants here which mean there is a great interest in the Sudan and the problem of Sudan I have a picture of this group so that when I go to Malacal I will show it to my group that you are not the only one dealing with your problem there are other people I'm a share man or a share person you don't accept man here I think I'm a share person of peace reconciliation between Dinka and Shaluk and our committee is a church committee we visited the area in the villages so that we understand why there is a conflict between Shaluk and Dinka what we found they say this conflict does not originate from them it comes from the educated people and they have reason why they want to make us fight one another the question I want to raise is the one which has not been raised and that is you know the impressive presentation dealing with the question of borders between the north and the south but now the speaker of the reporter said there is only left five months for referendum well now in Sudan people are thinking about referendum five months left and there are these problems on the border they have not been settled are they going to affect referendum and if they are not going if they are going to affect the referendum what will be the solution to prevent these problems to affect the referendum and secondly your report to whom is it addressed is it addressed to Sudan Government to United States or to the street I don't know it is a very important question I also just came back from Malacal I understand the we have we have stated in the presentation of it as well like how the lack of border will affect the referendum that depends on the parties as we said the NCP wants the demarcation the demarcations are prerequisite for the referendum whereas the SPLM has not new developments in the discussion between the parties might have changed that it is very very unclear and this something that is happening now is not clear the danger is that the SPLM has said that the referendum has to happen the 9th of January and because even one more day would probably delay indefinitely and maybe the conduction of the referendum and maybe it would never happen so the problem is what will happen if the 8th of January the border has not been demarcated the NCP keeps insisting that the border must be demarcated we don't know and this is a conflict dynamic that we should prevent and one of the way to prevent that the old report is about that how to prevent specific conflicts around the border but to prevent the national conflict we should definitely support and the demarcation of the border as much as possible parties have not requested yet support on that side but something has to be done to support like state border demarcation committees security on the ground migration in the next dry season before October and help the parties find an agreement on the contested areas because demarcation is now supposed to happen for the non contested areas but what about the contested areas and those are issues that need to be to be addressed and who is this report for as we said for everyone when we were on the ground also we were discussing constantly with the parties more with the SPLM to be honest because it's more difficult to talk to the other party but also with the assessment and evaluation commission to diplomats to the needs policy makers diplomats peace makers university we notice a lack of knowledge of the border dynamics so this report is to inform and say this is a problem I add something to that which is a lack of knowledge and information so even if a set of mechanisms are developed either through a borders governance forum and then into the negotiations or however they come about which could make the border work for local communities and national parties if that information is not communicated successfully to all the stakeholders then it will do little to actually reduce the potential conflict so I mentioned a rumour earlier going around Mujlad about the electric fence these rumours are extremely important and they apply to both sides of the border and the the Dinka in Benchu they also have all sorts of rumours about how different mystery elements are being supported in various ways various parties or individuals and one of the ways which it seems those kind of rumours can be or the damaging effects of those kind of rumours can be reduced is through dialogue across the border and that's one way which dangers and threats of the referendum could potentially be reduced and can I add one thing the people interviewed in the south they trust Goss at this stage even member of opposition parties they have moved back to the SPLM they are supporting the SPLM because they believe is the only party able to get to the referendum but we also think that they believe in the SPLA and as the only army able to solve the referendum problem the referendum is becoming a security matter and this is a very dangerous dynamic in the case the SPLM cannot guarantee the referendum to happen on time what about the frustration of people that have fought and voted for them and this we go back to the risk of fragmentation and fractionalism within those communities final question to our neighbor I'll try to make it as quick as possible I was wondering since the how and the where the border is still yet to be determined I was wondering what role if any bordering states are playing or international governments are playing or for that matter companies because you mentioned oil was a big kind of cog or wrench and what role those entities are playing in determining how the border and where the border will be defined the technical border committee has worked in the last five years and went to Egypt and England to find maps including Durham University today the there is an African union high panel that is dealing with the post referendum talks where all international donors support has converged but the issue of the border is not directly addressed in the talks and to our knowledge the issue remains within the presidency and there are there is support from many people have interest in seeing the demarcation happening including United States and there are bilateral talks and support in that sense but there is a forum where the border issue is discussed with the international community the assessment and evaluation commission composed by UK, Norway, US, Italy the Netherlands Arab League has just had a meeting on the border dynamics and informative meetings but no decision was made there when the international community or international actors have been invited to support the process of border demarcation not of 1156 but of the Abbey of Boundary we saw a forum open up in The Hague which was essentially the support that was requested by the parties so there is one example of where when asked an international institution has become involved and there is ambivalent feeling as an intervention of international there are some states some communities that favor that and see as the only option even a military security intervention along the border being UN or AU or a hybrid solution and other communities that reject that also seeing Abbey and the disconnected as created with local communities I think I'll bring this to a close now a couple of final points of information there are executive summaries available if you haven't seen on the table outside the full report will be available for download on Concordus International's website as of tomorrow after that it will be posted on the USIP website within the grant program web page feel free to contact me if you have any trouble getting the full report I did want to put in a mention of a future event at USIP on September 21st at 2pm there's going to be an event on the role of Darfurian civil society in the Darfur peace process which is quite an interesting topic these days the panel will help launch a USIP report on the subject there's information outside as well as on our website so that will be coming up on September 21st finally thank you very much for coming we hope it was interesting and thanks very much to our panel as well