The Sudan Handbook

282 thE sudan handbook

aid projects that came to exercise influential roles in Sudan. Following

a conference in Khartoum in March, Sadiq al-Mahdi’s government

agreed to establish Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), a unique working

arrangement for the international humanitarian presence, enabling its

expansion and deepening role. After 1989 the number of international

agencies and expatriate staff grew significantly, vast resources were

directed into humanitarian relief, and there was greater access to remote

villages throughout Sudan via air relief operations. Thanks to its airfields,

wartime rural southern Sudan had more contact with the outside world

than at any period in its history.

Operation Lifeline Sudan

OLS was a tripartite agreement between the Government of Sudan

(GoS), the SPLA and the UN in 1989 to allow humanitarian relief to

be delivered to both government and rebel-held territory. Premised on

the right to humanitarian assistance by civilians in need, OLS was the

world’s first humanitarian programme to assist civilians on both sides of

an ongoing war within a sovereign state. OLS aimed to avert an antici-

pated famine through nutritional interventions (grain distribution and

feeding centres). It was produced by a conjunction of circumstances:

flooding in Khartoum in August 1988 that led to media coverage of the

autumn famine in that year, moves by the GoS and SPLA towards peace,

and political developments outside Sudan, including a new US admin-

istration. OLS was organized into a Khartoum-based Northern Sector

led at first by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),

and a Nairobi-based Southern Sector coordinated by UNICEF, with the

help of a new logistical base in Lokichoggio, northern Kenya. The UN

provided coordination and support to an NGO consortium on the basis

of agreed principles, including the neutrality of humanitarian relief.

Some NGOs (including Norwegian People’s Aid, otherwise known as

the NPLA, the Norwegian People’s Liberation Aid) preferred to retain

their ideological and operational independence, and did not sign up for

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors UN coordination.

(www.riftvalley.net).