The Sudan and Development of Post Conflict Indicators

Abstract

Abstract : Southern Sudan had been at civil war with the north since 1955 for various reasons to include religion, politics, and oil. The second civil war ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). A promise outlined in the CPA was the opportunity for Southern Sudan to vote for their independence from the North. The referendum took place this January with 98 percent of votes in favor of separation. This is great news for the people of Southern Sudan and champions of democracy worldwide. However, Southern Sudan is plagued by many of its own internal problems and instability and there is the possibility of civil war. In support of the emergence of South Sudan and other countries worldwide, our research determined that the four main areas of focus in predicting civil war or the potential for conflict were security, social, economic, and governance. More specific conflict indicators were developed within each of these functions. To better understand the inter-relationships of these functions a Systemigram and a value model were developed. Conflict in Sudan is far from a simple problem. There are many factors that influence other factors and add or take away from the possibility of civil war. The Systemigram attempts to mitigate some of the confusion by providing a visual representation of the problem in Southern Sudan which enables us to examine the links and interactions between the functions and indicators of the system. The value model is a mathematical model that takes statistics for each of the indicators developed as inputs and computes a value which when added to the other indicators values provide a total score indicating the likely progression of Southern Sudan toward civil war. These two products work together: the intent of the Systemigram is to show the interactions between the indicators and help validate the method of scoring using the value model.