Social Science Research Council

Jeffrey Gettleman’s article in today’s New York Times, “Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells a Food Bonanza,” is an excellent overview of the issues surrounding food production and food relief. Excepting solely the current context of high international food prices, it could have been written at any time in the last thirty years.
In the 1970s, [...]

This post is also available in French (PDF, 96KB).

Land has often been described as a key motivation for the Arabs and non-Arabs who actively participated in the “Janjaweed” in Darfur and southeast Chad (see my article “Darfur: a Conflict for Land” in Alex de Waal (ed.), War in Darfur and the Search for Peace.) One of the primary traits of the Darfur crisis (like the Dar Sila crisis in Chad) can be described as a split between those members of the population with territories (hawakir) due to traditional, mainly pre-colonial land rights and those who have none – a split which is not exactly the same as the ethnic divisions between Arabs and non-Arabs that are so often presented without nuance.

Many thanks to Alex de Waal for posting my briefing on land issues in Sudan on his blog last month and for stimulating so many interesting contributions on such a critical topic. I have just returned from Juba where I have been carrying out research on the reintegration of IDPs and refugees returning to the [...]

The point of departure for the report, Darfur: Dimensions and Dilemmas of a Complex Situation, published by the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research, is a field study conducted by the
author in Sudan during the fall of 2007. The purpose of this analysis is
to deepen knowledge about the current crisis in Darfur through [...]

To avoid the continuity of conflict over land and its resources in the Sudan, it should be constitutionally and legally confirmed that "land belongs to the community" and that "community land should not be sold." Community land for investment can be leased out and not sold out at all to outside users. For any investment [...]

Here’s a paradox: the Sudan government and the armed movements–both SLAs and JEM–reached agreement on the land clauses in the Darfur Peace Agreement in the weeks leading up to the conclusion of those talks in May 2006. This should be a cause for optimism–a rare case of actual agreement between Khartoum and the rebels. But [...]

In the Sudanese context of prolonged conflict, mobility of pastoral groups into the transitional areas such as South Kordofan and Blue Nile and the drive for compensation for the dispossession of lands where petroleum is found, rural land is being gradually and consistently transformed from communal use to private possession. The lack of a land [...]

The headline is striking: The Land Question: Sudan’s Peace Nemesis. It reflects a growing body of opinion that conflict for land is an important, even the most important driver of conflict in Sudan, especially in Darfur, and that there is an urgent need for far-reaching reforms to land policy, management and administration: reforms which will [...]

Posted on behalf of Michael Kevane
Sudan’s land issues are big and dangerous. Let’s gingerly walk around this growling cur with a big stick and not be too optimistic about what land tenure interventions can do to promote peace and stability.
Sara Pantuliano’s paper seems targeted at the UN administrator who needs a set of talking points [...]

Posted on behalf of Paul De Wit and Jeffrey Hatcher
The need to address the issues of access and ownership of land, and land claims and disputes is recognized in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) and the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (EPA). New land policies and laws must respond to the [...]