The war in Sudan has entered its third year. Thousands have been killed, and close to 13 million are internally displaced or living as refugees in neighboring countries. The conflict has destroyed the country’s infrastructure, reducing the capital city, Khartoum, to a ghost town.
Despite the magnitude of the destruction, the international response has been weak. The United States-Saudi mediation in Jeddah, produced two humanitarian framework agreements, but neither resulted in any real change for civilians. Another attempt to draw the warring parties together was made on August 14, 2024, but this too, achieved little.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the US has played a limited role, appearing to prefer to outsource the management of the crisis to Gulf states as could be inferred from the US State Department’s recent convening of the Quad (the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt) to revive the mediation efforts.
Coming off the signing of a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, however, the US administration is now indicating that it will renew its engagement with the conflict in Sudan. The administration planned to hold a meeting of the Quad, which was postponed, reportedly due to a diplomatic dispute between the UAE and Egypt, over the role the warring Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces SAF would play in a potential peace process. Both Egypt and the UAE have been accused of financing and providing the warring parties with weapons.
It is still unclear whether the Trump Administration will work behind the scenes to help the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia reconcile their differences before calling for another meeting – or alternatively, drop the file for now and reengage at a later if there are major miliary or diplomatic developments.
That being said, the disagreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on one side, and the UAE on another makes it very difficult to envision any mediator other than the US. The US is a strategic partner to all these countries and it can use some of its leverage and political capital to facilitate an agreement. Once a plan is developed, then the mediation could benefit from the weight and influence of the United Kingdom, Norway, the European Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU). Each of these entities bring valuable expertise and comparative advantage that can cement any political settlement in its final shape.
US negotiators must move beyond power and wealth-sharing agreements
Given the transactional approach to US foreign policy we have seen during the Trump administration, whether it be in Ukraine or Africa, there are indicators the administration will likely pursue a quick-fix solution in Sudan. This could take the form of prioritizing humanitarian access and civilian protection under the current de facto territorial partition of the country. Such a step is bound to lead to a power and wealth-sharing solution between the warring parties. However, agreements of this nature, of which Sudan has had many since independence, have not brought lasting peace. A new approach is needed.
Negotiators will need to address the fallacy of legitimacy of the two warring parties – the SAF and the RSF. In addition, a peace deal will need to be complemented by a comprehensive vision for ending the war, through political arrangements and addressing key issues including the nature of the state, citizenship, and the system of government.
A new approach to peace in Sudan is needed
For a sustainable peace agreement, negotiators must first identify the motivations of the external actors in the war (UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar), requiring each to raise their concerns and ambitions with complete transparency and clarity.
Second, mediators must explore the minimum acceptable outcome in terms of interests for all regional parties directly involved in the war – mainly Egypt and UAE – without compromising the interests of the Sudanese people.
Third, mediators must bring together all initiatives around a general framework and a single platform into which all these efforts are channelled through a careful and well-coordinated process, agreed upon by all actors.
Fourth, there must be a recognition that quick-fix solutions, based on territorial control and power and wealth-sharing, may be justified in the short-term to end the bloodshed. However, in order to create a durable peace, they must be supplemented by more comprehensive approaches, based on popular participation and consideration of sociopolitical dimensions.
Fifth, negotiators must separate the process of ending immediate violence from the long-term political process. In order promote durable peace, deal brokers must go beyond sharing power and wealth to address issues of citizenship, justice, and freedoms.
Finally, Sudanese civilians and civil society groups must be involved in the process.
Realities before the Washington or any other conference
The Washington conference, if it occurs, will take place against a backdrop of hard facts that must be acknowledged directly, as they are the foundation for realistic political vision to end the conflict.
First, it is unlikely that any party can achieve a decisive military victory or significant changes on the battlefield that would significantly alter the political calculation in the short term. The nature of the war has changed and at this point each party to the conflict could easily cause damage and cause disruption in areas far away from the main conflict. What this means is that controlling territory is not as important and that each side can inflict severe damage without controlling lands, through the use of weapons such as drones.
Second, there is no active, existing negotiating platform that warring parties could turn to if they wished to negotiate the terms or modalities of a ceasefire, its monitoring mechanisms, and other technical issues. The Jeddah platform has become little more than political fiction; it no longer exists in any practical sense.
Third, there is no specific platform undertaking a political process to unify the visions of civilian political forces, including those allied with the warring parties, around an end to the war. Despite repeated indications that the AU would assume this role, the experience from several meetings organized by AU to bring together various political forces, such as youth and women’s groups, has raised questions about their technical capacities and political will to end the conflict. Most of these meetings have been held to appease funders (specifically, the European Union) and have become little more than a formal box-ticking exercise, or an attempt by a bureaucratic apparatus to justify the salaries of its employees and there has been little to no follow up.
In addition, engagement with civilians within the civil society space, such as political parties, local NGOs, trade unions, etc has been messy, given the scale of disagreements amongst various stakeholders. In this context, it is easy for any local, regional, or international commentator to claim that the political and civil forces are divided and that there is no organized civilian bloc. Blaming Sudanese civilians for their divisions is easier than confronting the structural factors or the armed actors and their foreign backers. In fact, differences within civil society are a reflection of those in society whose interests they are organizing and framing. As noted above, these divisions are becoming more intense because of the shifting nature of the war, but also by the actions of regional and international actors through selective recognition of certain groups or interests. The international community should support independent civilian forces and civil society to safeguard them from the warring sides and the deep polarization ongoing, rather than blaming them for that polarization.
The conflict has moved beyond the SAF and the RSF
The war is no longer a single conflict between the SAF and the RSF. It has engulfed Sudanese society, and some Sudanese may continue to kill each other even if the warring parties reach a ceasefire. The painful truth is that grievances and the desire for revenge are now deeply rooted in the souls of most Sudanese. Given this, any peace project that does not consider a long-term, comprehensive program for social recovery and reconciliation based on transitional justice will itself be the cause of the next war.
The Washington conference and/or other future conferences, will be heavily influenced by the facts on the ground. Between diplomatic conventions and the desire for a quick fix, the interests of the countries meeting in Washington will likely be translated into a power and wealth-sharing formula intended to stop fighting and achieve relative stability. The danger of this approach is that it may take place without proper consultation with and inclusion of Sudanese actors (either military or civilian), and if that occurs then solutions will be designed to serve the interests of the participating countries, not the Sudanese people, which do not necessarily align. It is possible to forge a winning formula that both fulfills the Sudanese aspirations for a just, lasting, and sustainable peace and preserves the interests of these countries in Sudan. Of course, no priority should be higher than silencing guns to provide relief to the people and stop deaths by bullets and by hunger. The quick fix will be an important entry point, but alone it will be insufficient. Sudan’s experience with peacemaking since independence, from the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, and ending with the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) in 2020 is that it has focused too much on power-and-wealth-sharing, without sincere scrutiny of the root causes, until we reached a stage where bearing arms became the fastest way to enrich oneself and ascend the political ladder.
After bitter wars, bloodshed, and tragedy, Sudan needs solutions that move beyond mere power and wealth sharing among warring parties. No language can fully capture the objective reality: social divisions run deep, grievances are countless, and weapons are in the hands of all. In this context, quick solutions may encourage combatants to lay down their arms. This can open the door to a political process grounded in comprehensive justice, social healing and peace, but unless the door is wedged open with a clear political process, this will not materialize. After a ceasefire is secured, a meaningful peace process must address the root causes of the war and enjoys legitimacy from broad consensus from the Sudanese people, who should be active participants.
Bakry Eljak Elmedni is an associate professor at The Roosevelt School, Department of Public Health, Policy and Administration at Long Island University and has worked in program design, policy and planning with international and local NGOs and civil society groups. He is an active member in the Somud coalition of civilian forces in Sudan. This is an abridged article that originally appeared on the Sudan Transparency Policy Tracker website and can be read in full here.
