International Non-Government organisations (INGOs) working in the Sudan are invited to enter into a compact for rehabilitation and development of the Nuba Mountains region. INGOs are invited to contribute each year for the following eight remaining between three percent-to-five percent of their individual annual funding capacities in Sudan to a proposed Nuba Mountains region fund for rehabilitation and development programmes and projects.
The priorities are safe drinking water, food security, health and nutrition, primary health care and medical care, as well as basic education and community training and skill building. The primary beneficiaries would be the rural poor, including (ex-IDPs), ex-combatants returning to their original home villages, windows and female-headed households, orphans, victims of land mines and persons with war-related disability.
Nubanet believes that one of the most important ways to bridge the gap from relief and rehabilitation to the specific objectives of human development would be:
Firstly, to focus the attention of the humanitarian community in Sudan on the immediate need for rehabilitation of Nuba Mountains. This could be achieved by setting out a detailed area strategy note for Nuba Mountains.
Secondly, is the setting up of Nuba Mountains fund for rehabilitation and development and inviting INGOs to make contributions
Thirdly, is the creation of a co-ordination mechanism that would efficiently and effectively administer the funds at both the Nuba Mountains and provincial level.
To this end, Nubanet proposes the establishment of Fund for Rehabilitation and Development (FRD). The FRD would be lead by a Board of trustees. Nubanet Executive Director and his team shall be entrusted with the task of good management of the funds. They will be accountable to the Board of Trustees. Every INGO that contributes to FRD established automatic eligibility to membership of Board of Trustees. One representative of HAC in Southern Kordofan state and one representative of NRRDO will assume observer status at Board meeting in Kadugli. Nubanet Regional Director in kadugli will be a member Ex-officio and report to the Board. The Board should hold regular meeting every 3 months to follow up performance of FRD. At least two of the Board regular meetings, for January and June, will be held at Nubanet Regional Office in Kadugli. Indeed they will be accompanied by cross-conflict field visits of members of the Board to see some ongoing or completed projects that had been implemented.
The Proposed co-ordination mechanism (FRD/Board) would serve as a test case for INGOs to work together through Nuba-based and Nuba-led INGOs operating in the Mountains. The executive would also serve as a litmus test for positive preventative social action on conflict resolution. Furthermore, FRD is intended to serve as a humanitarian
social safety net for the 1,300,000 people
who live in the six provinces covered
by NMCFA. It would also make possible a smooth transition from conventional forms of short-term relief assistance to a situation where humanitarian assistance would be directed to rehabilitation and development.
A necessary technical requirement for reshaping humanitarian assistance that must be met during the medium-term, October 2002 -–December 2003 is to conduct geophysical surveying of ground water resources, land use and human settlement mapping and surveying, and social economic baseline surveying of households. This exercise is made pertinent because of lack of dependable statistical data for setting benchmark indicator-values.