 A warm welcome to everyone, those that are with us here in the room and also those that are joining us online. This is being live streamed and available on UNWebTV. Warm welcome to this briefing on developments in Sudan and prospects for democratization in the country. This briefing is organized by International Idea. For those of you that don't know International Idea, we are an intergovernmental organizations with 34 member states that are focused on strengthening and advancing democracy around the world. We work across all regions of the world and we are thinking a do-tank. We collect good practices on democracy building around the world and we provide technical assistance on democracy building and democratic reforms. We are permanent observers to the UN General Assembly. I'm Annika Silvaliandri, I'm Idea's permanent observer to the UN. As you all know, on April 15th, 2023, tensions between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary rapid support forces turned into fighting in Sudan, escalating into a severe armed conflict that has engulfed the country in what risks turning into a large-scale civil war. And as you probably know, the currently warring factions took power through a military coup on October 25th, 2021. And this coup ended a fragile democratic transition that started after the removal of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Since the fighting broke out in April, hundreds of civilians have been killed in Sudan and many thousands more injured, and those numbers are growing by the day. The situation in Darfur and Khartoum are particularly catastrophic. Entire neighborhoods have no running water, limited electricity supplies, and more than two-thirds of hospitals near areas of conflict have been incapacitated. So there are currently acute shortages of food, water, medicines and fuel with prices of essential items and transport sharply increasing. Even before the recent surge in hostilities, approximately one-third of Sudan's population faced hunger every day, and the ongoing conflict has placed millions more at risk. According to the World Food Program, 19 million people, so two-fifths of the country's population, are now expected to face food insecurity and hunger in the coming month. Because of early this month, the conflict had displaced over two million people, including over 500,000 who have fled to other countries, including Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and South Sudan. As the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted two days ago in a high-level pledging event on Sudan and the region, the scale and speed of Sudan's descent into death and destruction is unprecedented. And without strong international support, Sudan could quickly become a place of total lawlessness with spillover effects not just for the country itself, but also across the region. So we are organizing international ideas, organizing this briefing for those of you that are interested in or following developments in Sudan or working on Sudan. And the briefing is intended to shed light on the situation and developments that led to where the country is now. The Long and Winding Road to Democratization in Sudan, we will talk about, how international actors try to support the transition to democracy, the role of civil society throughout this process, and we will also discuss what the prospects for peace are in democratization, and also the role that international actors, including the UN, have and can do in the current context to continue supporting democratic forces inside and outside the country. So for this discussion, we have a very interesting panel of Sudanese experts with us who will share their views. We start with Suliman Baldo, Dr. Suliman Baldo is the Executive Director of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, he sits here to the right. Dr. Baldo was previously a Senior Policy Advisor for the ENOUGH Project and directed the Sudan Democracy First Group, a Sudan-focused think tank aiming to help to bring about faster democratization in the country. And Dr. Baldo has also lectured at the University of Khartoum. We also have with us Dr. Sami Said to my left, he's Head of International Ideas Sudan Programme since 2020 and who has had to leave the country since the conflict broke out and he's now operating from the US. So he will share his perspectives on the conflict and what international idea has been doing leading up to now in support of the democratization process in Sudan. We also have with us Maha Tambal, she's currently Program Manager at the DT Institute in Washington DC but she is here as a civil society representative. She has worked extensively with civil society in Sudan to strengthen their role during the democratization process. Before we engage in the panel discussion and each of the panelists will present their views, we will have an interactive discussion, I'll share a few questions with them, then we will open up the floor also for your question so that we can have an interactive discussion. But before we start, I wanted to hand over to Mr. Dihun Ostewar from the Netherlands Permanent Representation here at the UN, he's Deputy Head of the Political Section of the Permanent Representation and we're very honoured to have him with us today to just provide a few introductory remarks to this discussion. The Netherlands is a Member State of International Idea and they are also the Chair of International Idea in 2023 so we're very honoured to have you here today with us and I hand it over to you for some introductory remarks. Thank you very much Madam Permanent Representative of Idea International, the honour is really ours, my personal honour to be here today with you, with all colleagues here present and also for the Netherlands to be as you mentioned chairing International Idea for the year 2023 and already some introductory points have been made so I'll keep mine very short but just to share with you a number of points from the point of view of the Netherlands and from our side of engagement in the important region of the Horn of Africa and in Sudan specifically. Let me start by saying that it is very clear that humanitarian aid and humanitarian relief together with achieving something that would be a more durable form of ceasefire are really key and the most urgent priorities at the moment. The Netherlands is a key donor of the UN Central Emergency Response Fund which has allocated over 80 million dollars to the Horn of Africa so far including 18 million dollars for Sudan. Additionally the Netherlands has provided 65 million euros to OHS country-based food fund in the region this year alone and specifically for Sudan our humanitarian support amounts to over 20 million euros including efforts done by Dutch relief alliance and of course we're part of the European Union and as many of you will will have seen the European Union committed additional 190 million euros in humanitarian development aid. For the Netherlands like for other countries working together and in partnership with the Sudanese people a key priority is also promotion and protection of human rights in Sudan. We achieve that and try to achieve that through a strong partnership on the ground with relevant stakeholders with the relevant civil society organizations. We of course strongly condemn human rights violations currently happening in Sudan. It is really heartbreaking and I cannot emphasize that enough to see what the people of Sudan who fought so hard for democracy and political and stable transition have to go through now during these days and these weeks. These violations cannot go unaddressed, they cannot go unpunished, there must be accountability, there must be investigation and there must be prosecution for violations. As was said already the briefing today is meant to not just discuss the situation in Sudan but to specifically provide an analysis of what avenues there for democratization in Sudan. It may sound as something unattainable in the current context but as IDI international has very well put in their writings on the topic democratization is also about understanding and incorporating people driven processes into the design of initiatives. By extension this also means that civilians should be at the center of any political process and negotiation and through an inclusive process including when discussing ceasefires a sustainable solution is more likely to be reached. Over the years the Netherlands has built strong relations with Sudanese civil society and we see it as our responsibility as well to put them in the lead of the current processes and to continue supporting them in whatever way we can and also in our partnership with IDI international. We believe that we must carefully listen to the ideas and aspirations of people in Sudan and to help them amplify their voices using their knowledge and their understanding of the context and we must in our turn use our resources and our platforms to help them bring their messages across. So during today's discussion we hope to reflect both on past practices and what we can learn from what was done in the past but also to understand what we can do better and what can be done better in future in this regard. So we hope to jointly identify how we can support people living in those areas that are affected by continuing fighting at the moment and to strengthen resilience of the civil society that is trying to achieve a ceasefire and a solution. I would like to just end with one last message and that's of wishing you and everyone here a very fruitful and productive discussion and thank you for organizing this very important and timely event. Thank you so much representative of the Netherlands for those very wise words and excellent way to introduce and frame this discussion. So we will now turn over to our panelists and we will start with framing the discussion to take stock of the developments that led to the current situation in Sudan and we will do that with Dr Baldo. We will start with you. You are from Sudan. As I said before you're currently the Executive Director of Sudan's Transparency Policy Tracker. You have a very solid academic background and you have lectured also on these topics in Sudan. You also have ample experience from the UN and African Union Mediation Processes in the region. So we are hoping that you can kickstart the conversation by helping to frame the discussion by telling us a little bit about the background of the events that led up to the current situation. The events that led to Sudan to where it is now and the challenges of the democratic transition in the various phases of this process leading up to the current situation. So I hand it over to you Dr Baldo to kickstart the conversation. Thank you and I hope I could touch at some of the topics in the brief time I will have to discuss this. Once again of course Sudan is in the news for the very wrong reasons. In a town of Jena capital of the state of West Darfur 80 percent of the population has been forcibly displaced by attacks that are not intertribal conflict or intercommunal conflict as often portrayed wrongly in the media. From our observation of the situation there these has been systematic attacks on unarmed civilians on ethnic basis by one of the two fighting armies in Sudan the rapid support forces and militias allied to it. The specter of 2003 is with us again massive displacement already from West Darfur there is 100,000 displaced in Chad and we have seen the horrific scene of an entire city population walking the 40 miles to the Shadyam border because of this horrendous violence. This is an extension but also a root of the violence in Khartoum because the repressor forces had their root in the Yanyuid militia it was reincarnated in the repressor forces in 2003 to defend the then ruling regime of Amar al-Bashir it is an extension of the Sudan armed forces which is now you know its sworn enemy it was trained equipped armed by the Sudan armed forces leaders of the or the commanders of the two forces that are now fighting have reached this point after decades of partnership in crime starting from 2003 until today and their blockage is not only for the aspiration of marginalized people of the peripheries of Sudan for treatment inequality this is the genesis of this conflict which is the the protected long history of of inequality where power wealth influence have been concentrated in the center you know leading to armed insurgencies and for the regime of Amar al-Bashir as I said which is now deposed to counter these armed rebellions therefore specialized force the repressor forces was created to wage counter insurgency by proxy from the Sudanese army therefore the partnership was there in terms of the military strategy and the reward to boost the Sudan armed forces and the repressor forces the Bashir regime of course showered them with privileges with share in the national economy companies for the Sudan armed forces companies for the commanders of the repressor forces together they have acted to suppress the aspirations of the Sudanese people for democracy and we have seen that happening times again especially after the glorious revolution of 2018 in which youth groups resistance committees women associations civil society neighborhood groups wage a peaceful uprising against the Bashir of Amar against the regime of the national congress party and Amar al-Bashir bringing it down after months at length of repression the continuous demand by the pro-democracy movement in Sudan for the handover of power from the military who just simply staged a grab following the fall of Bashir to institute a junta a military committee to rule Sudan the population said no we want transition in which the civilians are the you know the leading the institutions of the state to transition Sudan to democracy and this military repressive instrument again the aspirations of the marginalized in this in the peripheries and again it's the pro-democracy movement we have seen it you know repressing this peaceful protest through the massacre in Khartoum in 2019 in which you know a joint force of all Sudanese security forces joined you know in attacking and massacring the sitting participant and therefore this is you know the the conflict today is you know I would say it's in the very genetic structure of this security force that is suppressing democratic aspirations and aspirations for equality from the regions today the repressor forces turned against the army because of competition over the control of the future of Sudan and the control over the resources that comes with it the repressor forces are embedded in the population in Khartoum committing atracious violations of the rights of civilians to life and you know the looting of property is done at a mass massive scale systematically they are holding hundreds of detainees many of them we consider as disappeared the response of the government of Sudan is reliance and the Sudanese army is reliance on the air force artillery and this is calling mass destruction this is calling must of the destruction that's occurring simply put you know the entire integrity of Sudan is at stake today we are in a situation where the country could slide into total state failure there isn't a government functioning in Khartoum today the caretaker government instituted after the coup d'etat of 2021 october is an absentee government we haven't seen it meeting to address the very special and extreme crisis that occurred some ministers are in post-sudan to to you know help with the management of the humanitarian situation from there through the what is arriving in the city not affected by the conflict but nothing else is being done with regard to restoring essential services and and provide what the government do government has not paid salaries for example for two months is now the duration of the conflict the bombings by both sides have you know destroyed the industrial base the economic structure of Sudan today is totally at waste because of this conflict at the national capital at the national capital and Khartoum is basically where most of the infrastructure in Sudan is concentrated and therefore it will be a very difficult post-conflict situation once the guns finally are silent you asked me in in in advance of this meeting Annika about what the international you know community could do and focus on in these dire and extreme situations I believe the political processes and the mediation processes that are underway by multiple regional and international actors particularly the intergovernmental agency for development they got the african union and the yedda process arab league with a proposal that it has advanced but the most active concrete processes now are being led by the african union and they got issue of which had the roadmap for resolving the conflict and ceasefire are actively ceasefire negotiations are actively underway in yedda so the process must prioritize you know whether in yedda or once people move to the phase of political negotiations that process must prioritize of course the top priority is bringing an end to hostilities an early and sustainable humanitarian response to the crisis that privileges civilian initiatives and I am saying privileges civilian initiatives because in the total absence of government in management of the crisis on the ground in the hospitals in the residential areas it is civic actors who have stopped forward to provide responses to this we see it in the hospitals that are run by volunteers doctors health workers resistance competing committee members who provide the you know the few supplies that are available in one place to take them at a great risk to themselves to another we see it in ordinary people who are out of compassion and human solidarity are coming to help in in addressing the medical crisis for example we see it in technicians who have drawn safe passages for civilians who want to leave the capital to go to regions that have not been affected by the conflict so the crisis response is actually provided by civic actors at a very high level of organization and the humanitarian response international humanitarian response must you know be informed of this and interact and channel relief through the those who already are responding to the crisis in these their conditions for the last two months is restoration of civilian led transition towards democratic transformation must be a you know a top priority and in no circumstance I would imagine that the international community would again commit the mistake of giving legitimacy to the two fighting generals having given them that opportunity following the you know the the power grab of 2019 following the fall of Bashir having them again given them the opportunity when they were allied together in the you know in the wake of the Khartoum massacre of the city and again negotiating with them following the coup d'etat of 2021 again the civilian led democratic transition and therefore there should be no you know concession for any role for the two generals who are fighting today in the post-conflict political dispensation and instead the all the thrust should be towards a civilian led you know democratic transition definitely that negotiation would be difficult one it should be an inclusive process with effective participation of civilians including Sudanese women the youth who are in the forefront of this all pro-democracy development I would leave it at that and if there are any follow-up questions you know I could respond to this thank you thank you so much Dr. Baldo for the for these insights and the overview of what has led to the situation up until now important to emphasize the crucial role that civic actors are playing to keep society going including basic services and hospitals and the importance of including civilians and women and youth and civil society in in these negotiation processes going forward I do have follow-up questions but I will hold them until we've heard the other panelists and we will now turn over to to Maha Tambal you are also from Sudan and you are here today to represent some of the voices of civil Sudanese civil society so you're not here to represent in your role as DT Institute you have been engaged in conversations with and former colleagues and friends in civil society that are both inside the country still and some are outside so some of the views that you will present will reflect what they have also shared with you so we wanted to hear from you how current developments in the country are impacting on civil society and what civil society's responses have been to the ongoing developments can you share some of those views over to you Maha thank you so much Anikan thank you Mr. Representative of the Netherlands and thank you everybody for making time to attend in person or to follow us online it's an absolute pleasure to to brief you today on what civil society has been doing during this crisis and even during the transition period actually the the continuation of the conflict in in in Khartoum and in north Kurdistan and in west sorry north north Kurdistan north therefore and west therefore is really resulting in kind of devastating impact on the ground we see that the number of death is really increasing and we see direct impact on civilian properties either in Khartoum or outside Khartoum conflict zones and this impact is really extended to the civil society themselves we saw that most of the actively and well-established organizations and civil society groups who are operating in Khartoum they have been now impacted by the by looting and destroying actions that happens from the RSF who have been seizing civilian properties and and seizing civilians houses for military purposes and sometimes just to shelter in place on those on those places so as a result we see most of the civil society groups have been either flee the country those who have resilient operational capacity they managed to flee the country others were many to shelter in safe regions outside the capital Khartoum in in many urban cities this has been temporarily impacting their day-to-day operational capacities but at the end of the day they are still committed to their values and committed to their to their to their principles to support Sudanese people to raise their demands on having freedom peace and access to justice as an immediate action civil society is similar to other Sudanese groups have the value of solidarity is really high so we saw that the resistance committees we saw the youth led groups the civil society groups and the community-led organizations have been engaging together through kind of community-led approach where they managed to provide emergency response to help doctors to operate dysfunctioning health facilities providing life-saving aid to to needy people helping in burying dead bodies piling on streets providing logistical support to citizens who are fleeing countries we also see see the civil society actively engaging through their the civil society activists and the online content creator to to to do campaigns online campaigns to to combat the disinformation propaganda that's being widely spread by Safa and RSF equally so just to raise the awareness of people on this mass disinformation is spread and to provide reliable resources of information disinformation including access to health facilities access to some logistical providers so these are just like a a simple day-to-day actions that civil society group has been for voluntarily taking we saw also the civil society groups who have logistical privilege to access to internet nowadays have been engaging with some with some Sudanese voices in diaspora overseas in Europe or in Africa or in the US so that they can bring their voices up to the international community to brainstorm on what actions to be taken in response to these crises and how to coordinate also on the ground day-to-day actions despite the civil society has been entirely excluded from the from cotton cotsies fire talks in Jeddah but we saw that some civil society groups like the use use networks observers it's it's it's just a pure voluntary use network who organized themselves they set their mandate to monitor the ceasefire that took place on May 30 up to June 3rd they had they documented the ceasefire this time this short ceasefire period they documented they used very primitive qualitative tools they managed to document it to visualize the data and to publish their reports so I think this is very brave role from them in this very critical timing they took this uh this responsibility on voluntarily basis and we really need to support this kind of actions where we also see the civil society is thriving to provide advanced establishment of humanitarian corridors during the ceasefire but the problem is the ceasefire itself uh it's not like a real ceasefire it's just an opportunity for the RSF to continue looting civilian properties and houses there is no real ceasefire so that accordingly those voluntarily civil society groups can help establishment of humanitarian corridors to help people to move or to help people to access to health or even to go to just purchase some goods and do some other day-to-day stuff so that's part of the gap so we see them trying to overcome these gaps through following some security protocols by you know naming everybody and try to provide the small networks of groups that everybody knows each other and try to guard also the neighborhoods but that's something really it's beyond their very limited capacity as as civilians so uh but i just want to say that what the civil society is now being doing during this crisis is just an extension of the very promising role that they played even prior to uh December 2018 but also during the government the transition government where where they had this enhanced civic space where the civil society managed to engage in in in the juba peace talks they managed to engage with monitoring the transitional government civil society organ at most of the civil society groups who are not officially represented in the transitional government the first or the second transitional government so they opted to to choose the the observer role they have been monitoring the transition process creating pressure on the government to increase accountability and access to justice and then we had the coup and then we saw that all the civic space has been collapsed again and space has been really get very tight for civil society to freely acting but even during the coup period we saw that some of the trade unions and professional associations they managed to really to merit during this critical time for an instance we were really following the Sudanese journalist syndicate selections and that was like a very the fairest election since decades we managed to see also the lawyers association providing constitutional draft that provided a breakthrough for for the December 2022 from work agreement we saw the resistance committees managed to group together and publishing their declarations to to to rule themselves and to govern their their role during the transition so they have been engaging in in different in different forms to shape the politically space during the coup and now I think the urgent need for them to continue serving that role is to increase their voices in international platform to really the international community knows what those people doing and how they can support them we know that there are too many logistical challenges for international community to be impaired some present in Sudan but they can't rely on those groups through different means of communication to empower them to enable them to play those roles independently to to really to bridge the infrastructural gaps and to break the day-to-day governmental gaps that really the country is now getting through so but I think we can go through that maybe in a different round I just don't want to see the floor thank you so much for these very interesting insights both on the role that civil society in in the broad sense played during the transition and and even after the coup including not just NGOs but also trade unions and lawyers associations and so on but but also how they have now shifted their role to not just humanitarian services and and support although a lot of them probably are being absorbed by that by those functions but that there are still some that are finding the space to to do other important things like monitoring the ceasefires and documenting and also fighting disinformation the disinformation that is spreading and and using the online space also and other creative tools to make their voices heard so we hear your plea also on on the importance of international actors supporting civil society voices whether they are inside the country or outside and also the role of diaspora and their connection with local groups inside the country I think that's very important but we will hear more from you later on but we will now turn to my dear colleague Dr. Sami Said who heads international ideas Sudan program since 2020 since the conflict broke out you have had to leave the country like most of your colleagues of the idea program they have either left the country or have fled into rural areas outside of the capital so we want to hear from you Sami how has international idea supported the democratic transition in Sudan in the various phases and even past the coup until now and and what organizations such as idea can do to support democratization in Sudan if there is are such prospects now in the current context going forward but but maybe you can first tell us a little bit about what an international idea did do in these various phases of the transition so we understand better thank you thank you Anika and thank you for for all those who are attending this in person also virtually attending this important briefing about the situation in Sudan in particular our idea member state representing their countries in the UN and who's attending this briefing also a international idea actually signed the agreement with the transitional government in in October 2020 in the with the minister of foreign affairs and based on their based on a request came from the from the transitional government to international institutes for democracy and electoral assistance international idea to support the transitional process during the three time of the transition and actually international idea came with the with other international organizations those who came to support the transition in Sudan and and they began to to read Sudan since the revolution or since the since the establishment of the transitional government and that after April 2020 2019 most of most of those those international organization came to Sudan they came with very strong support from international community and from their own headquarters with a million of hundreds of millions of dollars to support the transition in general including international idea who came to support the transition with a very good support from the international idea headquarters in Stockholm and in a strong partnership with the Sweden international development agency and European Union in Sudan so mainly the support was just focusing on the mandate of the transitional government which cited in the transitional constitution of 2019 so those priorities were listed there and from there we started supporting the transitional government but technically international idea is well known as a think tank and and and and exhibit on areas areas of constitutional building electoral assistance political participation and gender and peace building so in those area international idea closely with the international it was a national transitional government and other international donors and actors in Sudan we were operating in Sudan and later we established with other international organization a committee of following this as this process and came later with under with a close coordination with the UNITAMIS is a UN political mission in Sudan to to organize and to to avoid the application in in providing such kind of support from there we start building that connection with the transitional government with the with the minister of justice with the minister of federal governance and also the with the office of the of the prime minister so those those three institutions were mainly those who are like in the same area of operation with international idea so international idea was providing technical support to to the minister of justice in developing a new draft for the new constitution for future Sudan and also a new electoral reform system and also supporting the federal government system in in in in in in expanding dialogue and discussion and negotiation on the issue of federal governments and also supporting the the juba visa agreement implementation that sign in in october 2021 2020 so that that was the that was the the the area of support international idea was trying to to provide with the other international actors as dr. Selimambildo mentioned that in in in october 2021 uh when the coup happened the two uh the two military function the the uh Sudanese military forces and the rabid forces together they and their alliances they they went through that uh uh coup d'etat and they dismissed the the transitional cabinet uh suspended that as a transitional constitution part of the transitional constitution including those committees and and and drafting committees and sub ministers committees all all were dissolved so the those who were already like cooperating and and and in the in the process of handling this support technical support from international idea to the transitional government uh so accordingly all those uh support were suspended and the international committee including international idea already decided to suspend their support to the transitional government to the coup uh to the coup leaders or or so the de facto government so uh those support were the same when we were trying to this uh support the reshaping the process and to bring back the uh the transitional uh process back to the table uh by initiating a negotiation between the civilian and military and signing a new kind of political pact and and and designing the process uh the the war uh uh they came and started and the hostilities started in april 2023 in april uh and all all all those activities also again suspended and the international community community including international idea uh suspended again their activities in sudan uh their staff member uh evacuated outside the country their offices were looted and their assets destroyed by the by the by the uh uh militia groups a expert facilitators uh consultant they left sudan and so from there we we as as an international organization we start operating from outside of sudan by liaising with the international community including the un a u e god and and a state of arab leagues just to rethink about how we can bring back the process and to support sudanese people to reshape their future peaceful and democratic future and from there uh the the support and and and and technical technical research uh seminars round table as the part of the preparation for the mediation and dialogue between the between the concerned uh uh factors including the two military function and and the political parties and international community just to support the the process to go uh so far the two parties they uh actually so far being unwilling to implement comprehensive cease fire also that one of the challenge that uh international community including international idea uh they they failed to go and reach people in ground also to provide support so far the technical support to the mediation to the uh to the concern military concern uh negotiating uh parties and also mediating a mechanism it is still available under such or under the current circumstances also in which all institution of of the national government are are not around and have been destroyed during this military operation and international personnel have left sudan also clearly we can notice that there is no uh effective and professional uh institutions that can provide any kind of support in the national level so that also brings more concern about the need of international community to bring more technical support and also uh to support the the mediation was it is under the Jeddah platform or a new platform in in all cases the the only way to to to support the sudanese people is to push for the for the more push more for the for the peaceful discussion our peaceful negotiation between two parties and also including civilian who are looking for the future of a safe and and secure and and democratic sudan a movement actually have been launched from from from inside sudan from civil society from many civilian component and and and democratic movement to to bring the voice of civilian sudanese to the negotiating table and from there i think also the international community and international ideas is willing to to to support that those initiatives of women group youth group political parties uh academia universities all are pushing now to uh to stop this war and start again for the for the a new cycle of the transitional democratic transitional and peaceful transition for sudan i'll stop here and look for uh any uh feedback from the uh for those who are attending and thank you uh nika thank you so much uh doctor say for providing um your views and uh some information on what international idea has been doing to support the democratic transition in sudan and and what it's doing now to try to support also the mediation um processes that are happening maybe building on on the topic of mediation processes you have all mentioned that there are a number of attempts on going which one of of those do you think are most viable and most promising in terms of going towards peace i don't know if if maybe dr baldo would would you want to answer that question or thank you the obstacle to successful mediation now is the unwillingness of the parties to engage directly because they have persuaded themselves that they could win militarily on the ground and until that calculation changes uh i think there will be difficulties as we are seeing now in the yet the platform uh of uh even securing uh a ceasefire that holds the ceasefires are violated we have now reached a dozen of them with the with the latest that ended yesterday it was respected the fairest day there was quiet in the fighting in khartoum but not in darfur the in darfur the the reputable forces uh attacked and took control of the town of uh uh tauila in in north darfur for instance so they but then second day fighting resumed and the third day we witnessed intense fighting again however the parties remain present in gedda that means they are willing to continue negotiating and i think the next window of opportunity is the uh aid uh you know uh latha which is around the corner within uh you know the coming days and this is a this is a you know the most important and prominent religious feast in islam and i think the negotiators could use that as leverage to get them to agree to a more extended ceasefire and to observe it this time the population really needs a break uh you know and we don't need to go to the details because this is what you receive reports about every day but we are talking about millions of sudanese they're still stranded in khartoum many of them in crossfire zones unable to procure uh you know food or unpaid salaries for months is now and no access to cash because of the collapse of banking services and this situation is reaching a point where something has to happen and that's something which is forcing the beligrance to observe a ceasefire that is monitored and and and observed by independent quarters uh to which you know the international community should should really make sure that we raise the stakes because of the high risk to the population and because of the high risk to the integrity of an entire country sudan it's really at the risk of state collapse and if that happens the entire region of the sahel and the one of africa east africa south sudan will be affected by this not to mention egypt and and and libya to the north and so on so there is urgency for an observer that will ceasefire and the only mechanism to get there is now they get the platform the african union as i mentioned and i got and and uh league of arab states are all positioning themselves to take on the process you know of of the political mediation for the political dispensation in the post conflict period but we are not there yet you know we don't have an observable and monitor ceasefire yet separation of forces humanitarian access is a priority all these fires because of the way they they were not observed did not allow meaningful relief to reach the people most at the risk who are isolated in crossfire zones yes no absolutely very important the humanitarian access as a first priority and actual ceasefire before any political mediation can take place um so um maybe just one one uh more question to to maha um the we know uh how strong the pro democracy movement was in the overthrow of the of the former regime um and it's been very united in its um in that overthrow um but there are concerns also that it's a very diverse movement and that there are some fractures within the movement and and that the current situation is sort of exacerbating those differences so what are your views on this and and is it possible to sort of reunite the pro democracy movement uh that is fractured also geographically now because many of them are spread out in other countries around a common vision for for the country thank you anika um i think um this it has to it has to falls um um i will come to the fragility and the division among the civil society but uh when it comes to supporting civil society regardless it needs the physical proximity and the technical support from international community we understand that most of the operating um agencies in sudan they have been suspending their operation in sudan temporarily to evacuate their international staff and to do hibernation relocation for their national staff to shelter in place and to ensure their safety and security but i think it's really high time for um international agencies to think considering re-operating in sudan through very small facilities they can have very small offices like import sudan in in in kesela in medeni a small communication office a small operational office have like one or two national staff working they are just to allow these international organizations to have an existence in the country and then you can move forward and see how you can expand this existence but having just leaving sudan and citizens isolated like this is taking people nowhere so there is a need to to re-operate and think on how how international organizations can re-operate in sudan and this also applies to the humanitarian aid um um actors they need to identify mechanisms where they can collectively works together we see that icrc cutter foundation are now able to to to send um personnel and aid to to port sudan but there are still some gaps in terms of the day-to-day functionality of the system in port sudan but this kind of experience it's important to understand how this experience operates how do icrc were able to facilitate the access of humanitarian assistance to to port sudan and then other international humanitarian actors come follow or just learn lessons lessons from this experience and then try to replicate it that's if we manage to provide this scene of this support we can go further and see what happens from the civil society there are two challenges in the civil society the we have the what we can call it like proliferation of initiatives like a civil society like group so that's they have this kind of divisions they have they their division is not on the goal but on the approach so we may need to create the incentive if we may need to create incentive that we can unify this goal and we have the space to have diversity approach where we can really customize approaches from those divided groups we take this from this and this from this and bring them them together this can create incentive for them that where they can equally participating or well they can diversely participating to bringing their different tools into one in the consensus whatever it is and the other problem I we saw that most of the pro-democracy movements are really brilliant in oustering dictator regimes but they fail to undertake or to move or to push transition forward and I would say this is my personal opinion and I would say the root cause for this is really the political parties whenever we have civilian coalitions political parties they take advantage of these coalitions and they are imposing their political agenda and this creates these divisions so there is a need to separate the role of the political parties in this crisis they really need to focus on them on themselves they have too many institutional fragility inside their political institutions they need to work on that they need to do institutional reformation they need to see how they can refine their political tools and I think international organizations like IDEA, IFIS and other organizations that are working on governance and accountability can really help to reform the political parties they should refrain from imposing their political agenda on civilian coalitions they just mess it up so that's that's one thing if we may need to really mitigate the role of civil society we can push these civilian coalitions forward with some very close technical support I think now during this crisis what we really need to do is to bring them onto an agenda how they can participate in this fire international community should understand that JEDDA platform is really useless unless you have civilian representation inclusive civilian representation and to have them represented and also in the monitoring mechanisms which we know that the JEDDA platform they identified a monitoring mechanism but civilians are not represented international agencies are not represented we have limited representation of international agencies but they should be expanded and if we supplemented this with physical limited physical existence of those international agencies in Sudan we will have a good impact on having a lasting monitoring mechanism on the ground the other thing is also if we really need to help the civil society I mean we know that the civil society is operating with limited technical and financial capacities but they cannot be blamed for everything we really need to do some other homework to just to to to provide the scene for them to provide conducive environment for them and that means we really need to have a government functioning in Sudan I would say USA KSA and those who are really undertaking a facilitating JEDDA platform they need to bring different agenda to the negotiating table like the ceasefire is just it's it's not really active it's not real in in Sudan nobody is really sensing any benefit from the ceasefire just for instance when we had the ceasefire that announced on June 18th a few hours after that my family house in Khartoum has been entirely destroyed and we have too many electronic devices and valuable goods being taken so just this is an example this is my family house in Sudan is what had happened to them and this applies to everybody so we really need to bring different agenda to the negotiating table I know that the US they are smart in doing the characteristic policy they can really play that game with with those two generals to to push them to discuss different agenda so if you're willing to help having a government functioning in Sudan we can really provide the environment for for the civil society but we cannot put all the pressure on them asking them to do a lot while nobody is really standing behind them thank you so much these are very important points not to put everything on civil society also the important role of political parties and the need to reform them and and crucially what you've said two things civilian representation in the in the Jeddah platform and also an urge and a plea to international organizations and international NGOs to not to leave Sudan to continue operating even if it's a small presence where it's feasible and I would like the other panelists also provide some recommendations but I first wanted to open up the floor for questions if there are any questions from from anyone here in the room may I ask that you introduce yourself and the your organizational or country affiliation yes over to you good afternoon I am Maria Lourdes Santos representing Vivat International and a nongovernmental organization with consultative status with ECOSOC and yesterday was the world refugee day and with 10 other NGOs we issued a statement regarding how the refugees are being affected by this prolonged conflict in Sudan we all know already that there are many refugees in in Sudan and other refugees coming from neighboring countries are also coming in like the Eritrean people who are also trying to flee from their own country and as they arrive in Sudan they are forced to to to run to other countries because of this conflict and for example to South Sudan and the subhuman condition that they are experiencing because of the prolonged conflict and just since yesterday is the world refugee day maybe I can read part of our statement that as we said as we observe the world refugee day yesterday under the theme hope away from home it is critical to hold a ceasefire in Sudan without delay and take care of the rights of refugees in compliance with international humanitarian law refugee law and human rights law and maybe I can ask our panelists how are they in their knowledge are they responding to the plea of these refugees that are really affected by the conflict in Sudan thank you for for that question is there any of the panelists that would like to respond to that question yes Dr. Sami thank you for the question actually yes actually there is so many challenges if you just if you can see that the the world itself is now is now is covering more new areas including Darfur for example and refugees now and displaced person now are crossing the national border to to chat and according to news coming from there also you can see that there is no presence for international humanitarian assistance in chat and most of the support that comes usually from the local community and local civil societies the same problem with the with the Sudanese who flee the the the the capital going to Egypt and Ethiopia there's so many uh uh fees restrictions and we will just stuck in the border without any basic needs and services in those areas still the the support that still comes come from from the local communities those who are hosting people in their houses providing food and other but still the those needs are including hospital security and and other services which is not available in those area uh the the the juba platform uh mainly they were trying to address the issue of the protection for the civilian during this war and and that that that that arrangement for the short and long uh uh ceasefire was just aiming to to support people to move from the risk area to a more secure and safe area but the two parties as I mentioned in my first uh briefing that they were not like willing to go for that implementation of the any kind of uh agreement that they they they agreed to go through uh in in get the agreement that is that is the situation unless we have a solid and strong a commitment from the two parties to uh and the also international monitoring for the ceasefire uh the civilian will be the first uh uh victims on this uh of this uh military operation inside the the capital and other neighborhood in in the in Khartoum uh other things that need to be also to be mentioned and to be addressed in the future or the coming days that the the government should also try to support the international uh human humanitarian assistance workers to come and access the those areas and to provide the support now most of the things now are stuck in in in in Borsudan and some of them are not even uh uh money to to uh download those uh uh containers outside of this uh outside of these uh uh ships so that is a problem because there is no uh there is no functioning institution in place most of the officials of the of the institutions they left the country to a more secure area whether it's whether it's inside the country or outside of the country so there's no uh there is no um operating uh uh uh institution official to support the civilian still that also brings the need of the bring the bring to the to the to the discussions the need of the international support thank you Anika thank you so much uh so may are there any other questions from the floor no no more questions yes one uh my question is uh dr beldo please uh dr beldo my question is based on an assumption actually i hope it will come one day had the in the future peace has come no more war and we had the chance again to have a political transitional stage or phase like the one which has been going before april 15 what do you think that we had the right path towards political transition in the past that we should take the same model again with us in the future or there should be a change thank you very much this is a very difficult moment for Sudan because it's facing really an existentialist threat the level of destruction that is occurring now the level of stress and and and suppression and oppression of civilians in the country the level of attacks on the state and institutions has never been reached to this level and that's why i opened my intervention by saying you know that is a threat to the integrity of the country i believe that it is incumbent upon us the Sudanese in the wake of this war to really confront this legacy this history of not acknowledging the root causes of continued conflict in the country and that must be the foundation for any future dispensation the root causes of this legacy of inequality of disparity between the ruling classes elites in the center of Sudan and the rest of the country and this disparity has been pushed to extreme polarization during the 30 years of the regime of Amr al-Bashir and we never had a chance following the the the fall of Bashir to have a genuine reform of the institutions of the state so that the cultural the issues the cultural roots the issues of identity that are at the at the basis of all this conflict are properly addressed and also the economic the economic disparities between and among the the Sudanese themselves so the challenge is really great my concern is that you know this current war is leading to a level of divisiveness in Sudanese society that we have not seen you know before with you know people who are accusing each other of being a traitor because they are calling for an end to the to the war questioning their patriotism or their commitment to the country and so on no we need to rise to the challenge and be above you know this divisiveness if I may add yeah I think just to add to that addressing the root causes the equal and inclusive access to wealth and power and also I think corruption is one of also the root causes that really become a growing a growing cause but if we look at the modality we had during the transition in 2019 if that modality is really a valid one to to think about if we many to have a piece in place that modality it has its its plus and minuses and I think we may need to really to very fairly look at the lesson learned from that modality and try really to mitigate the gaps and and I will say really the gaps that one of the gaps at that modality like the political party were really in rush to take power they haven't really followed the book of transition transition it doesn't mean political parties should be engaged in in in ruling at that moment they need to do their their institutional reform and leave the floor for technocrats to lead the country to the election moment I think this is where the gap that we had at that at that time when when we applied that FFC modality if we many really to address this as as a as a gap in this experience we might have a more promising modality to to to follow if we many to have a piece in place did that answer your question thank you so much for these views we're coming to the end of our session but I before we close I just wanted to ask if there are any more sort of recommendations that you would want to make any of you on the panel to to international organizations to the UN or to member states before we close that we cannot have sustainable peace in Sudan in the post conflict when this war stops without really addressing the root causes of continued conflict and civil war in Sudan but also without a serious endeavor of or a serious program rather of of security sector reform security sector reform is essential you know no state maintains two regular armies two legally constituted and mandated regular armies as that has been the case in Sudan and we have seen the result in the end they fell apart and destroy the country and fighting each other this should not be allowed to continue all armed factions of the unmoved most for example that sign Yuba and now autonomous and moving on their own as private armies of this particular arm movement there are more than five of them that has to end and I think this would be you know my concluding remark you know that security sector reform has to be prioritized thank you very good point to end this conversation thank you so much to our panelists for your insightful views I hope it has been useful and interesting discussion for you all present here we're really hoping that the hostilities will cease soon immediately and that there is a ceasing of targeting of civilians that humanitarian access is secured for those in need and that we we can support the Sudanese people in this very difficult moment so thank you very much for attending today and thanks to the panelists thank you