Justice Africa’s Civil Project 1996 – 2005:

Justice Africa’s involvement with Sudanese civil society began through a first Civil Project in Sudan, which was a response to human rights abuses in Sudan. The Civil Project (al Mashru’ al Medani) was an ambitious attempt to develop a broad civil programme in support of human rights, democracy and a sustainable peace in Sudan and had practical impacts: forming coalitions of civil society organisations, and developing capacity to address issues such as press laws, party laws, judicial reform, self-determination, administrative decentralisation, civic and human rights, trade union and employments rights, education, educational curricula, women’s rights, food policy, land reform, disarmament and demobilisation, and the return and resettlement of refugees and displaced persons.

The Civil Project grew out of an earlier initiative known as the Committee for Human Rights in the Transition in Sudan. This Committee, formed of four different organizations (African Rights, the host, and then transferred to Justice Africa in 1999; the Sudan Human Rights Organization, the South Sudan Law Society, and Nuba Mountains Solidarity Abroad), was established in 1996 with the aim of ensuring that when peace and a transition to democracy finally occurred in Sudan, the opportunity for protecting and promoting human rights and civil society would not be missed. On two previous occasions, the overthrow of military dictatorships in Sudan had ushered in a bright dawn of democracy, but hopes were quickly dashed when Sudanese democrats and civil society leaders failed to organise effectively to protect their gains. The leaders of this group were determined that this failure should not happen again.

In 1999, the Committee held its first conference on human rights in the transition in Sudan, in Kampala, Uganda. More than 100 delegates representing civil society groups from all corners of Sudan attended the conference. At the conference, the delegates decided to change the name of the project to the “Civil Project,” in opposition to the National Islamic Government’s “civilisation project”, which was imposing a homogenous extremist vision upon Sudan’s social and cultural diversity – and doing so by force. The concept of the Civil Project is also a remedy to the long-standing exclusivism and intolerance that has characterised successive governments in Khartoum and an attempt to reinvigorate Sudan’s tradition of plurality and tolerance.

The next activities of the Civil Project were aimed at injecting human rights and civil society concerns into the Sudanese peace process, which became reinvigorated in 2001. Our efforts in particular focused on trying to bring the marginalized peoples of Northern Sudan, namely the Nuba, Blue Nile, Beja and Darfurians into the peace process. We had mixed success with the Nuba and Blue Nile but our efforts to bring the issues of the Beja and Darfur to the peace process were blocked by a combination of the main Sudanese parties and the international community. Additionally, the Civil Project convened the first-ever Sudanese National Women’s Convention, which enabled Sudanese women to develop their own agenda and strategy for pursuing it.

By the time of the signing of the CPA in 2005, the Civil Project had active members in Khartoum, South Sudan and several parts of the Northern Sudanese regions. However, as international donors flocked to Khartoum and Juba to support local NGOs, the attractions of a consortium of local agencies working together on a long-term project for civil rights were reduced. But the rationale for the Civil Project remained strong and there were been repeated calls for it to be reinvigorated.

As a result of this, Justice Africa relaunched the Civil Project in 2009 in order to support civil society through the election, referendum and post-referendum. Please see here for more information on the current Civil Project.