Sudan

Africa

Endorsements

Safe Schools Declaration

Endorsed in 2015

Paris Principles

Endorsed

Vancouver Principles

Endorsed

EWIPA Declaration

Not Endorsed

Relevant UN Resolutions
GCPEA Education Under Attack

Profiled in GCPEA Education Under Attack

Profiled in: 2022, 2020, 2018, 2014

Other Important Information
Memberships in International Regional Organizations
Peacekeeping

Is not a peacekeeping contributing country

Key Information

Key information about the country.

Advocacy Meetings

Chronological recap of the engagement with this state or any other relevant information that can support advocacy.

March 2017: Attended Buenos Aires Conference on Safe Schools.

June 2017: UNICEF Sudan is preparing a strategy to follow up with the authorities in Sudan on implementation. GCPEA provided advice.

August 2017: Watchlist published a response to the Fifth Conclusion on Sudan, which was issued by Security Council Working Group on children and armed conflict, in which they expressed concern about the military use of schools by the Sudan Armed Forces, and welcomed the Working Group’s call upon the Government to ensure that schools and their personnel are protected, commending its endorsement of the Declaration.

September 2017: Watchlist published a response to the Fifth Conclusion on Sudan, in which they expressed concern about the military use of schools by the Sudan Armed Forces, and welcomed the Working Group’s call upon the Government to ensure that schools and their personnel are protected, commending its endorsement on the Declaration.

September 2017 UNSC: GCPEA sent a letter to the ambassador in New York asking to raise the issue on attacks and military use, draw attention to the Declaration and the Guidelines and to mention the AU call to endorse during the Open Debate on children and armed conflict.

May 2018: Speaking at the UN Security Council Arria formula meeting on action plans, the representative of Sudan updated the Council on its work with UNICEF to vacate and rehabilitate schools.

August 2018: Nevena and Gisela met with the Ambassador of Sudan and one of his Counsellors to explore the possibility of a GCPEA visit to Sudan in December. In summary, they are very favourably disposed and will make a positive recommendation to Khartoum.Some points from the discussion: They are very happy that we like the military directive prohibiting use of schools and they promised to try and get a copy for us. They are keen that there will be a benefit (“incentive”) for them in the form of positive publicity. We discussed how we are highlighting good practice in our comms materials, that we plan to have an outcome report of the visit that will detail good practice, and that there may be an opportunity for them to share their good practice at the Spain conference. According to the Ambassador, protection of education is enshrined in Sudan’s constitution, law, and their newly-adopted Armed Forces Act. The Ambassador led the delegation to East Sudan which concluded the 2006 peace agreement. He is keenly interested in conflict-sensitive education policy and spoke of its contribution to ensuring peace is maintained. He also mentioned that ensuring children from both sides of a conflict are all in school can be one way to ensure that the school does not become a target. He advised us that eastern Sudan has been declared landmine-free and spoke about their work on DDR programmes to reintegrate former child soldiers. The Ambassador told us about a large-scale reconstruction efforts by his government to build a school in every village, town, and city across the country and train teachers. He referred to UNAMID’s role in building and reconstructing schools in Darfur. Sudan wants to improve school enrolment and has incentivised school attendance with food aid for the students and their families, focused particularly on increasing enrolment by girls. He said they are at 80% enrolment in primary schools. He recommended engaging with the Assistant to the President and Dr. Amna Derar, Minister of State for Human Resources Development, both of whom were high-level members of the Eastern Front.
As we were leaving the meeting, the Counsellor raised concerns about Education Under Attack 2018. According to him, inaccurate information was included in the report. They asked if GCPEA could consult with them in future to ensure that the report is accurate. I responded briefly explaining the methodology for the report, said I would share the feedback with our Research Director, and invited them to send any specific concerns by email. Next steps: We have followed up in email to thank them for the meeting and share key points concerning the visit. They have promised to share this with Khartoum and let us know when they have received a response.

March 2019: attended GCPEA side-event on “Better Protecting Women and Girls from Attacks on Education” in Geneva. During interventions from the floor, the Secretary-General of Sudan’s National Council on Child Welfare referred to their endorsement of the Declaration and efforts on implementation, including the military directive prohibiting the use of schools for military purposes. They mentioned GCPEA’s mission to Khartoum in December last year, and highlighted that the visit had been successful in setting out tangible objectives.

March 2019: Clustered Interactive Dialogue with the SRSG CAAC Virginia Gamba, HRC Geneva: joined Norway’s joint statement on the Safe Schools Declaration.

February 2020: Save the Children Sudan is planning a multi-stakeholder workshop, which will offer a forum for key stakeholders to collectively assess the barriers to protecting education in Sudan and define joint actions to advance the implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration. A key outcome of the workshop will be the development of a road map for next steps to further implementation of the and to provide a clear division of responsibilities among participants. GCPEA Secretariat provided suggestions and recommendations on how this workshop can build on GCPEA training, which was held in December 2018, and the engagement with key Ministries on implementation. The recommendations included the following subjects: 1) gendered impact of attacks on education in light of the abuses against school girls in areas with presence of security and armed forces; 2) inclusion of the issues of protection of education from attack and military use into the upcoming peace agreements.

October 2021: cosponsored UNSRC2601.

November 2022: On 17 November, Nevena and Apolline met with the Ambassador in Geneva, H.E. Mr. Hassan Hamid, and the First Secretary Mr. Omar Shareef (Sudan was recently elected at the HRC starting in 2023). The Ambassador emphasized that protecting education was a key priority to his country, and he underlined Sudan’s Sovreign Decree prohibiting the military use of schools. He stressed the importance of GCPEA reaching out regularly and conducting field visits (referring to GCPEA’s workshop held in 2018). He was very supportive of working with us in advance of the HRC sessions to strengthen language on protecting education, as well as the idea of joining the Core Group in Geneva. We also briefed the Ambassador on implementation activities through the state-led implementation network. He was very receptive to the idea of participating in the network and promised to follow up with his capital to designate focal points. He was also interested in taking part in the second global training with Spain in 2023 and other upcoming activities.
March 2017: Attended Buenos Aires Conference on Safe Schools and provided a speaker – third secretary from Geneva mission.

March 2017: UNAMA organized a workshop in Mazar, Afghanistan, aimed at finding ways to prevent the recruitment of children by armed groups. The workshop included sessions outlining international legal instruments including the SSD, which Afghanistan endorsed in 2015.

May 2017: Human Rights Watch issued a letter to all NATO member states about civilian protection in Afghanistan, asking them to help Afghanistan to stop using schools in light of their shared commitments under the Declaration.

September 2017 UNSC: GCPEA sent a letter to the Ambassador of Afghanistan in New York asking to raise issue of attacks and military use and to draw attention to the Declaration and Guidelines during the Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict.

October 2017: Human Rights Watch issued a report on barriers to access to education for girls in Afghanistan, together with a new animation video, highlighting many of these barriers, including attacks on students and military use of schools.

March 2018: During the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child, 5 March: Afghanistan highlighted their support for the Declaration in their national statement.

May 2018: In its monthly update for May, Watchlist called on Afghanistan to implementation the Declaration.

July 2018: Co-sponsored resolution 2427 (2018).

August 2018: Norwegian Refugee Council issued a report, Educational Sites in Afghanistan are Changing from Bastions of Hope and Safety into Spaces of Fear, Armed Conflict and Politics. According to the report, schools in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming military, ideological, and political battlegrounds. “28 per cent of surveyed children and parents stated that schools in their places of origin had been closed due to the conflict. NRC found that the majority of surveyed children do not feel safe at school, with many boys and girls terrified that their school would be attacked. 12 per cent had experienced attacks on their school and 15 per cent experienced shooting very near to their school building. Many had missed exams or periods of school, either because of threats from armed actors, or because they or their parents believed that the school would be targeted. 36 per cent of the children were frightened about risks of kidnap or attack en route to school.” The report also refers to NRC Afghanistan’s new 2018-2020 Protection Strategy which will focus partly on protecting education and operationalizing the Safe Schools Declaration.

November 2018: GCPEA has been working with Save the Children to prepare a briefing paper on attacks on education in Afghanistan that will be released on November 26, ahead of the Geneva Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan that will take place in Geneva on November 27-28.

November 2018: GCPEA released Attacks on Education in Afghanistan briefing paper to coincide with the Geneva Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan, where the Afghan Government and the international community will gather to discuss strategies for achieving peace and development in the country.

March 2019: mentioned their endorsement of the Safe Schools Declaration during the Clustered Interactive Dialogue with the SRSG CAAC Virginia Gamba, HRC Geneva. Joined Norway’s joint statement on the Safe Schools Declaration.

May 2019: Participated in the Third International Conference in Palma.

December 2019: HRW made a submission to CEDAW: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/23/submission-committee-elimination-discrimination-against-women-review-afghanistan.

April 2020: the Safe Schools Declaration was referenced by the Working Group in connection with the examination of the fourth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Afghanistan (document S/2019/727).

March 2020: the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has now made its first reference to the Guidelines for Protecting Schools from Military Used during Armed Conflict, in its concluding observations regarding Afghanistan

Oct 2020: GCPEA Director attended a joint virtual meeting which brought together the Group of Friends of Afghanistan in New York, Group of Friends of Children and Armed Conflict in New York, and the Group of Friends of Children and Armed Conflict in Kabul, Afghanistan. In her intervention, Diya highlighted that attacks against students and education personnel accelerated dramatically during 2017-2019 and gave concrete recommendations to strengthen implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration.

Examples of Good Practice

What, if anything, the country has done to protect education and/or implement any of the 8 commitments outlined in the Declaration.

Commitment 1

In July 2017, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) circulated a command order to all divisions prohibiting the military use of schools. The SAF began the process of evacuating and rehabilitating schools that had been in use by the National Intelligence Security Services. A school in South Kordofan was evacuated and rehabilitated in August 2016, having been occupied by the Sudanese National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) since March 2016. It was evacuated following advocacy by the UN and the Sudanese Ministry of Education. The UN verified
that state security forces in Sudan vacated at least three schools in 2018.

April 2018: A school in South Kordofan was evacuated and rehabilitated in August 2016, having been occupied by the Sudanese National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) since March 2016.

Two schools were vacated as a result of a worshop on the Safe Schools Declaration covened by Save the Children in West Darfur in october 2021, with the presence of state actors and civil society.
In 2022 Save the Children convened a workshop in West Darfur in which 29 different state and non-state actors, national and international organizations, and civil society groups signed a commitment to the SSD. Full press release here: Press Release – Safe Schools Declaration | Sudan | Save the Children.

A national action plan to protect education from attack in Sudan was developed by state and non-state actors during a workshop organised on the Safe Schools Declaration (SSD) by national and international nongovernmental organizations in Khartoum on February 5th, 2023. The workshop was attended by national actors, including the Federal Minister of Education and representatives from various state, non-state entities, including the Sudan Armed Forces, Rapid Support Forces, Federal Police, General Intelligence Service, and signatories of the Juba Peace Agreement, and civil society actors, as well as international actors, including the Ambassadors of the European Union and Norway in Sudan. The action plan includes the establishment of a technical committee to oversee implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration, the incorporation of the Guidelines in national legislation, military doctrine and training of Armed Forces, as well as enhancing monitoring of attacks on education.

Commitment 2

None

 

Commitment 3

None

Commitment 4

None

Commitment 5

None

Commitment 6

None

Commitment 7

None

Commitment 8

During a workshop in West Darfur convened by Save the Children, 29 different state and non-state actors, national and international organizations, and civil society groups signed a commitment to implement the Safe Schools Declaration and protect learning and education. Two schools were vacated subsequently.

National Action Plan or Technical Committee on the SSD

Not established

Relevant Contacts

Contact information of the representatives of Permanent Missions, national Ministries, and focal points for the State-led Implementation Network.

Geneva Missions

General Email(s):
mission@sudanmission.ch

Other Contacts:

Mr. Omar Shareef Hamad Eisa, First Secretary
omarshareef@sudanmission.ch

H.E. Mr. Hassan Hamid Hassan Hamid
Hassan.hamid@sudanmission.ch

New York Missions

General Email(s):
sudan@sudanmission.org

Other Contacts:
None

State-led Implementation Network

None