New Sudan war would cost Kenya, region

New Sudan war would cost Kenya, region
Source: AFP / www.capitalfm.co.ke
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010

(Khartoum, Sudan, Nov 25) - A return to civil war in the event that south Sudan votes for independence would cost the country, the region and international community more than 100 billion dollars, a study published on Thursday warned.

Aegis Trust, an NGO, and three research centres including the Institute for Security Studies, based in South Africa, drew up four post-referendum scenarios, ranging from peace to a resumption of full-scale war between north and south Sudan.

In the case of a 10-year conflict of medium intensity, the losses for Sudan would amount to at least 52.1 billion dollars (39 billion euros), on top of about 29 billion dollars for neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, the study estimated.

The impact on the international community would top 30 billion dollars in terms of peacekeeping missions and humanitarian aid.

"This report demonstrates the high cost of conflict. It implies that domestic, regional and international parties should be asking: 'Are we doing enough to avoid a war that might cost over 100 billion dollars and ruin countless lives?'" said Matthew Bell of London-based Frontier Economics.

The study calculated Sudan's losses in case of war on the basis of an annual 2.2-percent decline in Gross Domestic Product.

It would cost Ethiopia and Kenya more than one billion dollars a year in terms of forecast growth, the researchers said, warning that war would also damage Egypt, Sudan's northern neighbour and the region's leading economy.

The impact could be even heavier in the event of full-scale war that would disrupt the oil production of Africa's largest country, which has reserves of more than six billion barrels.

Khartoum and the former southern rebels signed a peace deal in 2005 after more than two decades of war. A central element of that accord is an independence referendum for the south scheduled for January. Since July, the two sides have been negotiating on key post-vote issues.

Chief among those crucial to a peaceful transition in case of partition is the sharing of oil resources.

Oil revenues make up the Sudanese government's main source of foreign currency earnings, while southern Sudan depends on oil for as much as 98 percent of its budget.

Most of Sudan's reserves are concentrated in the south but can only be exported through a pipeline passing through the north on the way to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

An oil-sharing formula would benefit both the north and south, whereas an interruption in production and exports would damage the whole country.

"Reaching some level of agreement before the referendum is important not only because both economies need uninterrupted revenue, but also to sustain the confidence of oil companies in their existing investments," the International Crisis Group said this week.

In case of peace and healthy ties between north and south Sudan as well improved security in Darfur, Sudan's growth would steady at an annual 6.2 percent for five years and even reach nine percent from 2016, the study said.

- - -

Report On The Cost Of A Possible Return To War In Sudan
Source: SRS (Sudan Radio Service) - www.sudanradio.org
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010

(Nairobi, Kenya) – A report published by a coalition of European and African economic and political think-tanks on Thursday says a return to war in Sudan would cost Sudan, the region and the international community about 100 billion US dollars.

The report which comes amid fears that the referendum could trigger an escalation of violence attempts to analyze the economic cost of war to the region.

Mathew Bell an Associate Director of the London based, Frontier Economics spoke to SRS in Nairobi during the launch of the report.

[Mathew Bell]: “The report is an attempt to do with economic analysis of what the cost of war to Sudan and the region and the international community could be. It very explicitly sets aside the very real and important human costs of death and suffering that would result in war but to take a financial perspective as a way of adding to the debate around the cost of war. The headline itself looks like it would cost in excess of about a hundred billion dollars to the combination of Sudan the region and the international community should war break out. That figure breaks down into about 50 billion dollar cost to the Sudanese economy itself. About a 25 billion dollar cost to the regional economy including Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. And about a 25 to 30 billion dollar cost to the international community in the form of peace keeping in the form of humanitarian intervention.”

Mathew Bell recognizes the difficulties in measuring the costs of potential future conflict in the report. He explains the different scenarios.

[Mathew Bell]: “Because of the uncertainties of what may happen because nobody can be sure about what the outcome is going to be, we have looked at different potential scenarios; we have tried to come up with a range of figures. And the 100 billion dollar that we have been quoting is towards the bottom end of that range. And the Low, medium and high conflict scenarios are different levels of conflict from a low level civil war situation, to a very serious situation to a very serious full blown civil war that might involve some of the regional players as well, or ways of how to characterize different points in the spectrum of costs. What we don’t comment on at all is what the likelihood of different scenarios would be. But we want to give a range of potential costs.”

According to the report the evidence suggests that the net impact of conflict would be significantly negative. Sudan would lose about 50 billion USD from its GDP, the neighboring countries would lose 25 billion USD of GDP and the international community would lose 30 billion USD in peacekeeping and humanitarian costs.

The report by the European and African economic and political think-tanks on the cost of war in Sudan was launched in Nairobi on Thursday.

Have the climate wars of Africa begun? Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources

Experts fear the conflicts involving cattle, water and land may be just the beginning of climate-driven violence in Africa. At least 400 people have died in northern Kenya this year, the U.N. says.

CHANGING CLIMATE, CHANGING LIVES

From The Los Angeles Times
Kenyans draw weapons over shrinking resources
By Edmund Sanders
November 27, 2009
Reporting from Isiolo, Kenya

Have the climate wars of Africa begun?

Tales of conflict emerging from this remote, arid region of Kenya have disturbing echoes of the lethal building blocks that turned Darfur into a killing ground in western Sudan.

Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they've been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows.

The aim, all sides say, is no longer just to steal land or cattle, but to drive the enemy away forever.

It's a combustible mix of forces that the United Nations estimates has resulted in at least 400 deaths in northern Kenya this year. Moreover, experts worry that it's just the beginning of a new era of climate-driven conflict in Africa.

"There is a lesson in Darfur," said Richard Odingo, vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. "Every dry area has the potential to be a flash point if we are not careful."

Africa is no stranger to conflict: The continent has been rocked by war, ethnic hatred, post-colonial border disputes and competition for resources, including oil and diamonds. But as the deserts encroach in Sudan, rainfall declines in the Horn of Africa -- a 15% decrease is predicted over the next few decades -- and fresh water evaporates in the south, climate change is transforming conflicts and kicking old tensions into overdrive.

"Climate change amplifies and escalates vulnerability," said Achim Steiner, director of the U.N. Environment Program. "It doesn't mean that conflict is inevitable, but it's much more likely."

Scientific and anecdotal evidence is mounting that the changes underway here are more than climatic variation. Droughts that once appeared every decade now hit every two or three years. Icecaps atop Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro are evaporating, and Lake Chad has lost 90% of its water since the 1960s.

And Africa is getting hotter. Maximum temperatures in Kenya's Rift Valley and on its northern coast have risen by more than 5 degrees over the last 20 to 40 years, according to research by the group Christian Aid. Malaria, once rare in Kenya's central highlands because the weather was too cold for the disease-spreading mosquitoes, has become a major health challenge.

But conflict is perhaps the most alarming symptom. Violence is becoming deadlier thanks to population growth and the proliferation of arms. Thirty years ago, a few dozen tribal warriors with spears might have clashed at a water hole. Today rural communities are armed with AK-47s and even national armies are jumping into the fray.

In October, Kenyan soldiers clashed with Sudanese tribesmen conducting a cross-border cattle raid. This summer, the Ugandan military was accused of using attack helicopters against Kenyan herdsmen attempting to graze their stock in their country.

In Kenya, experts say, the violence has become as unpredictable as the weather. Faced with the extinction of their age-old livelihood because of what appear to be permanent changes in rainfall patterns, many of the 4 million Kenyans who survive by raising livestock are embroiled in a fight with one another and with herdsmen from nearby countries for the remaining viable land.

"The situation is getting out of hand and people are starting to worry about where all this is headed," said Mohammed Ahmed, a field officer with the British aid group ActionAid in Isiolo, where scores of people have been killed in recent months.

He and others say the violence this year has been more brutal and random than anyone can remember. Women and children have been killed, among them two women slain while collecting firewood in September.

Cattle rustling, which historically occurred after rains when herds were large, this year began for the first time in the midst of the drought, even though bandits had no pasture to keep the stolen livestock alive. In one recent attack, rustlers shot and killed several hundred animals when they realized they would be unable to escape with them.

That has led many to suspect that the motive isn't just to profit or restock herds; it's also to strike a death blow at the enemy.

"They want to force us to move off the land for good," said Romana Nasur, a member of the Turkana tribe who lost 65 goats during an attack in September.

"The first step is to make us poor."

The village of Gambella has long been a peaceful oasis thanks to a natural spring that enables year-round farming. It became a killing field in July, when scores of attackers, mostly Turkana and Samburu tribesmen, ransacked and destroyed more than 100 huts, shot holes in the water tanks and fled with several hundred animals.

The Kenya Red Cross Society said 11 people died in a nearby village during a similar attack this month.

Six people were killed during the daylong July raid and a schoolboy was shot in the leg while fleeing his classroom. Two-thirds of Gambella's 1,500 residents, all from the Borana tribe, are too afraid to return, said Abduba Serera, a father of eight and village leader.

"They want to scare us away to take our water," he said.

The Kenyan government has largely ignored the brewing crisis, dismissing it as the usual tribal clashes. But the drought has pushed Kenya's cattle-raising tribes to the point where they feel they have nothing to lose, experts say.

"It's a recipe for a major disaster," said Choice Okoro, humanitarian affairs officer for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noting the prevalence of AK-47s and other arms in northern Kenya. "We are seeing a militarization of their livelihood."

Okoro said it was a mistake to assume that tensions will abate if the drought ends. "It's different now, and it's alarming," she said. "It's not going back to normal anymore."

Sudan's Darfur region is perhaps the best example of what can happen when Africa's climate-related conflicts are mismanaged, exploited or left to fester. Desertification in northern Darfur over the last 50 years drove herdsmen south, pitting them against farmers. The Sudanese government is accused of exploiting the conflict by siding with the herdsmen, mostly of Arab tribes, and giving them virtual immunity to attack farmers, mostly non-Arab tribesmen.

More than 35,000 died in the fighting and at least 100,000 more died in the subsequent humanitarian crisis, according to the International Criminal Court. The U.S. has described the attacks as genocide.

Most climate-related conflicts in Africa have been localized, but experts warn that "climate wars" between neighboring countries could be on the horizon.

"If there will be any wars, they will probably be over water," said Odingo of the climate change panel.

Potential hot spots include the Nile River, which is the source of rising tensions between Egypt, which uses most of the water, and countries such as Sudan and Ethiopia, which are fighting for bigger shares.

Likewise, a new Ethiopian dam is causing the water level to drop at Kenya's Lake Turkana.

Odingo said he is confident that African governments will keep their heads and work together. But in Kenya, the government is accused of aggravating the violence through a series of questionable decisions.

In February, security forces raided a Samburu tribe stronghold, seizing more than 12,000 head of livestock and redistributing them to rival tribes. Government officials said they were trying to rectify previous thefts by Samburu raiders, but Samburu leaders alleged government bias. They launched retaliatory attacks.

The government has also armed the tribes, handing out more than 2,000 rifles over the last year to untrained "reservists," tribal leaders and government officials say.

The guns were intended to help remote villages defend themselves, but elders say that the government gave preference to certain tribes and that the weapons are being used in offensive attacks.

"The government is not being neutral," said Lawrence Ewoi, a Turkana leader. He said his tribe received only five of the 300 rifles recently distributed in Isiolo. "Now the other tribe is using the guns against us."

Mohamed Abdi Kuti, a Kenyan parliament member from the Borana tribe, denied that his tribesmen got most of the weapons around Isiolo, but he agreed that the spread of small arms was dangerous.

"There is a plan to recall all the guns because it's getting out of hand," he said.

But experts predict that few will heed the disarmament call.

Kuti said climate change had made tribes more susceptible to political manipulation.

"Because of the drought, people are desperate and they're willing to do anything," he said.

"It's easy to thrive on people's weaknesses."

edmund.sanders @latimes.com

One in a series of occasional articles about the effects of climate change on people around the world.

AGI: Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative

From The Office of Tony Blair
November 05, 2009
Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative to create development through good governance becomes charity

The Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative has become a registered UK charity after creating a unique 'hands-on' approach to development and poverty eradication over the past eighteen months.

The Charity Commission approved the application from this relatively new organisation, which is underpinned by the belief that good governance and sustainable development are key to poverty eradication in the long term.

Tony Blair, founder of the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), said:

"I'm extremely proud of our excellent project teams who are working in partnership with the governments of Rwanda and Sierra Leone to reduce poverty and develop new opportunities for growth.

"It is a privilege to work with leaders as talented and as committed to their people as President Koroma and President Kagame who represent a new generation of leaders in Africa with a commitment to building a new future for their people.

"The developed world needs to keep up its commitment to Africa expressed at the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles. But lasting change in Africa will only come in the end from African solutions. By building the capacity to create sustainable long-term development through good governance and providing high level advice, we have already started to help deliver that change.

"And it won't stop here. Whilst developing our work in Sierra Leone and Rwanda, we want to launch new projects with other countries, sharing our knowledge, experience and expertise. We want more countries to develop sustainably, paving the way to a prosperous future.

"This work has reinforced my optimism about Africa's future, as well as my conviction that governance and growth are the key ingredients to effectively reduce poverty across the continent."

Commenting on Tony Blair and the work of the Africa Governance Initiative, Ernest Koroma, President of Sierra Leone, said:

"Mr. Blair has demonstrated an enduring commitment to Sierra Leone and its people. The work comes at a critical stage in Sierra Leone's development. I believe together we have an opportunity to ensure that Sierra Leone puts in place the policies, people and institutions to achieve real and lasting change."

Commenting on the work of AGI, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda said:

"What I would like people to know is that the type of partnership we have with Tony Blair is totally different from the type of consultancy people are used to. We work in very strong partnerships whereby not only gaps are filled where they exist, but there's also the notion of transfer of skills, mentoring, actually doing things that are measurable such that over a period of time, we will be able to know what kind of impact was made."

Cross-posted to:
China Tibet Watch
Congo Watch
Egypt Watch
Ethiopia Watch
Niger Watch
Sudan Watch
Uganda Watch
Africa Oil Watch