SUDAN: Durable solutions elusive as southern IDPs return and ...

"During the conflict, the livelihood options of those who remained in situ massively contracted,
principally because of insecurity and limited mobility and the loss of assets. Livelihoods are now
slowly recovering, but largely without assistance and from a very low base. Local experts in
Southern Kordofan believe that it will take three to five years for livelihoods to recover to pre-war
levels, assuming good security. Restocking with livestock is usually the priority for household
recovery, since a lack of livestock holds back a household’s ability to generate agricultural
surpluses, in turn holding back restocking. This means that many residents have had to resort to
basic livelihood strategies that were rarely used before the war. In Southern Kordofan this
includes charcoal-making, with its negative environmental consequences. There is also more
agricultural wage labour."
"Returnees are usually dependent on agricultural production when they return, but this is often a
struggle for urban returnees who are not used to traditional labour-intensive farming methods.
Returnees tend to be more dependent than residents on poorly remunerated livelihood
strategies."
"On a more positive note, the new skills that many returnees have brought back with them,
ranging from building, welding, bicycle and other repair skills, food processing and baking, could
have significant livelihood potential that could otherwise take years of investment in training and
extension to bring about. This potential has not yet been realised. There is a serious lack of
resources and capital to enable these skills to be put to use, and a lack of purchasing power to
create a market in more remote rural areas. At worst, this causes skilled returnees to give up and
go back to the city; at best, they may stay, but become frustrated and resort to farming instead"
(ODI, August 2007, pp.7-8).
Services
"The service infrastructure in both States was badly damaged during the conflict, and is
inadequate to meet the needs of the resident community, let alone an influx of returnees. In one
village in Southern Kordofan, for example, residents had to cut water consumption by half to
accommodate the needs of the growing number of returnees. There is the potential for tensions
between the resident community and returnees to escalate and even break out into conflict if this
pressure on services continues to intensify, for instance as people spend hours queuing for
water. An important benchmark of a ‘durable solution’ for IDP return is the extent to which
returnees can access adequate services such as water, health and education. Assessing the
availability of services is one of the first priorities for returnees, and the lack of infrastructure has
caused some to pack up and leave the rural areas to which they had returned" (ODI, August
2007, p.8).
"Water emerged as the top priority for investment and rehabilitation, both during the field work for
this study in Southern Kordofan and in discussions with IDPs in Khartoum familiar with conditions
in the villages. Education was the second priority, with four key problems (listed here roughly in
order of significance):
1) The lack of integration of the two education systems in former SPLM-held areas and former
GOS-held areas has resulted in two parallel curricula being followed, one in English and one in
Arabic. Many returnee children used to Arabic teaching have fallen back by up to four or five
grades in the English-speaking schools of the south. In several villages, such as Shatt ed
Dammam, Keiga el Kheil and Angolo, there are now two parallel schools running the two different
curricula alongside each other.
2) The lack of secondary or higher education facilities in Southern Kordofan has meant that some
older children from returnee households have not come back, or have put pressure on their
parents to return to Khartoum.
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