Effective Humanitarian Assistance to Southern Sudan: The Legal, Political and Economic Constraints

Abstract

Although the civil war in Sudan is one of the longest ongoing conflicts in Africa it has not attracted much international attention. During the course of the war many lives have been lost and many people have been in need of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian assistance to southern Sudan, however, has always been insufficient.

This paper analyses the legal, political and economic constraints to effective humanitarian assistance. The legal obstacles seem to be the facts that there are no adequate international regulations regarding internally displaced persons, as the bulk of IDPs comes from Sudan, and that the Sudan is a sovereign state and the Sudanese fundamentalist government as legitimate and legal authority is entitled to full control of the actions of the humanitarian actors. The main political constraints are the policies of the government and of the rebel groups towards civilian populations and aid agencies, resulting in the prolongation of the violent conflict and the limitation of access to the people in need. However, the political involvement of humanitarian organisations and badly-designed development strategies are also to be blamed. The issues of ethnicity and ethnic tensions also seem to be crucial. The economic constrains are twofold: the inadequate level of funds and the existence of 'the economy of war'.