Sudan is a top priority country for our goal to prevent and resolve conflict.

The UK and Darfur

Darfur is the world's largest humanitarian crisis. In over 4 years of fighting between government, government proxies and rebels:

• over 200,000 people have been killed
• 2.5m people have displaced from their homes.

The UK has played a leading role to find a durable solution to the political and humanitarian crisis in Darfur:

• contributed £175m of aid to Sudan since 2003
• actively supporting the deployment of the joint African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) UNAMID peacekeeping mission
• supporting AU/UN efforts to find a political solution
• piloting key humanitarian initiatives.

UK and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

The UK has played a leading role in negotiating and implementing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended Africa's longest running civil war.

The UK was also a witness to the Agreement.

Key milestones for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement are rapidly approaching. They include:

• a population census in April 2008 (completed in May)
• elections in 2009
• a referendum on the status of South Sudan in 2011.

An underlying aim of the Agreement is to promote democratic transformation.

The Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) is is the body that monitors the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and helps parties to bridge their differences.

A UK candidate is currently chair of the Commission.

The UK and Sudan

Our influence in Sudan is based on:

• close historical ties
• our role in mobilising international support in the United Nations Security Council, EU and other places for the Sudanese peace processes
• our substantial aid programme - the UK is the second largest bilateral donor for Darfur
• our ongoing support and contribution to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and its implementation
• many Sudanese nationals live in the UK.

Implementation of a separate Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement is another priority for our prevent and resolve conflict policy goal.

Recent visits to Sudan

Peter Ricketts - Permanent Under-Secretary

Peter visited Sudan in May 2008 with the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development, Minouche Shafik.

During their full-packed 3 day trip they met Foreign Office and DfID staff, Sudanese Government counterparts and even a big film star!

Diary with video and pics from their trip.

Minister for Africa, Mark Malloch-Brown

Mark Malloch-Brown, visited the Darfur region in Sep 2007 and Juba and Khartoum in Jan 2008.

We’ve added photos from his Darfur visit to our Flickr photo set.