City limits: urbanisation and vulnerability in Khartoum and Juba, Sudan
Chair:
Baroness Kinnock - Chair, Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan
Speakers:
Sara Pantuliano – Head, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute.
Wendy Fenton – Coordinator, Humanitarian Practice Network, Overseas Development Institute.
Paul Murphy - Head of Programmes, Saferworld.
Description
Over the past four decades the cities and towns of Sudan have experienced dramatic population growth. Urbanisation has occurred in a context of poor governance, decreasing job opportunities, deepening social and economic insecurity and conflict-induced displacement. Growing numbers of poor and vulnerable urban dwellers live in abject poverty, are vulnerable to a range of daily protection threats and face acute challenges in relation to access to livelihoods, basic services and land.
Presenting case studies from Khartoum, Juba, Nyala and Port Sudan, this meeting series by the Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute explores the phenomenon of urbanisation and its drivers in different parts of Sudan, and analyses its social, environmental and economic consequences, with particular attention to urban livelihoods, as well as infrastructure and the provision of basic services.
In the first meeting, the speakers will reflect on the challenges of urbanisation in Khartoum and Juba.Hundreds of thousands of displaced Southern Sudanese have gradually returned from the North since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, putting huge pressure on infrastructure and resources. In cities such as Juba, which has almost trebled its population, further large influxes of people following the referendum on Sudan’s future in January 2011 will only exacerbate humanitarian needs.