Watson Events

CANCELLED: Hamid El-Bashir Ibrahim -- South Sudan Seminar

This seminar has been cancelled.

South Sudan Seminar with Hamid El-Bashir Ibrahim, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

The new state of South Sudan is a new important player in the hydro politics of the Nile valley which includes ten countries: Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and South Sudan. In fact 85% of South Sudan falls within the Nile Basin and the river flows for about 1500km in South Sudan’s land. 

The Nile Water treaties of 1929 and 1959 have benefited only Egypt and Sudan to the exclusion of the others, including the new state of South Sudan. As a result, other nations signed onto to the Nile Water initiative, now rejected by Egypt and Sudan. 

What is the likelihood of the survival of the new State of South Sudan? And what are the implications of its position in the geopolitics of the surrounding regions: Horn of Africa region, the Great Lakes region, Middle East and North Africa and the East Africa block? 

In two lectures and discussions on March 20 and 22, El-Bashir will highlight these issues and try to foresee the likely scenarios, challenges and opportunities for the youngest state in Africa (South Sudan). 

Suggested Readings 

1) Nile Opportunities: Avenues Towards a Win-Win Deal (by Kinfe Abraham) 
2) The Nile: Historical, Legal and Developmental Perspectives [Paperback] (by Gebre Tsadik Degefu)
3) The Waters of the Nile: Hydropolitics and the Jonglei Canal (by Robert Collins) 
4) Water Resources and Inter-Riparian Relations in Nile Basin: The Search for an Integrative Discourse (by Okbazghi Yohannes) 
5) The River Nile in the Post Colonial Age: Conflict and Cooperation in the Nile Basin Countries (by Terje Tvedt) 

Hamid El-Bashir Ibrahim is a Sudanese scholar, social anthropologist academician, researcher, human rights and political activist with a strong pro-democracy orientation. El-Bashir is also a columnist with regular and significant contribution to the hot and current issues in Sudan particularly on civil wars, unequal development, fundamentalism and human rights violations. At present he is a senior official at the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) currently holding the position of Country Representative for the organization in Eritrea, in East Africa.