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Purpose – This chapter examines Talisman Energy's operations in the Sudan, as part of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). It seeks to demonstrate that international corporate culture precludes ethical decision-making and practices by placing would-be ethical actors in untenable situations.

Methodology/approach – A case study approach is adopted. It analyses various lawsuits brought against Talisman by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan, who claim that Talisman aided and abetted the government of Sudan in genocide during the various protracted conflicts of a violent civil war.

Findings – By reviewing Talisman's corporate social responsibility reports, we find that locating corporate charters in the hands of nation-states entails an inherent tension that can only be resolved by either implementing an international corporate charter in the case of multinationals, or abandoning the corporate charter altogether

Practical implications – We argue for immediate application of the International Criminal Court in The Hague against corporate enablers of government violence against its peoples.

Originality/value – In the case of Talisman in the Sudan, international corporate culture and lack of support from its operating partners did more than discourage Talisman from implementing ethical practices; it prevented Talisman from acting ethically. In particular, it prevented Talisman from using the economic importance of GNPOC to the government of Sudan to disallow the government from using Talisman's infrastructure or oil revenues in military campaigns against the peoples of Sudan.

In 2019, a popular revolution toppled Sudan's long-term military president, Umar al-Bashir. The country then entered a three-year transition toward democratic rule during which power was shared between Sudan's military and civilian political organizations. In this period, international organizations and foreign governments were quick to proclaim their support for Sudan's democratic transition. However, policy reforms during Sudan's transition went beyond changes to formal political institutions, as the transitional government implemented major programs of economic restructuring. These restructurings were supported by Sudan's international partners, who normalized a discourse that Sudan was “overindebted,” and who held that political and economic reforms ought naturally to accompany each other. As a result, the transitional government implemented a shock program of liberalization and austerity that imposed material hardship on much of Sudanese society, including during a global recession resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This contributed to endangering the transition itself and the progressive promises of Sudan's 2019 revolution.

This chapter traces the history of how Sudan was excluded from Western financial and commercial markets through the imposition of sanctions in the 1990s. This caused Sudan to explore non-Western sources of external financing in East Asia and the Arabian Gulf. This history then shapes the contested ways in which Sudan's debts are counted by international institutions to create the misleading impression that the country is overindebted. Finally, the chapter examines how different elites coalesced to impose a program of shock fiscal austerity and economic liberalization during a crucial political moment, which helped to imperil the country's fragile political transition.

This chapter explores how marginalized youth, specifically former child soldiers in South Sudan, struggle to access education that is crucial in their reintegration process. The chapter draws upon data from a study focusing on the reintegration process of school boys formerly associated with armed forces and groups in South Sudan, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork including interviews and observations of 20 former child soldiers in Malakal, Upper Nile State. The study identifies a number of external factors that inhibit educational opportunities for the boys in their reintegration process. These are their life experiences, the impacts of war, their socioeconomic background and the lack of educational structures due to ongoing conflict. This study describes how the living conditions that motivated the boys to join the armed group are still present after their demobilization. Thus, they not only still find themselves in poverty but the time spent in the armed group and the impacts of war have put them in an even more marginalized position today than prior to their recruitment. The study argues that access to education is crucial in order to prevent recruitment and also re-recruitment to armed groups.

We consider the challenges to education in South Sudan by utilizing a national random sample of South Sudanese (provided by the BBC Media Action) and then semi-structured interviews with eight education service providers (SPs). We find that the conflicts have large impacts on educational opportunities. States that experience greater conflict also experience greater poverty. Under such conditions, children are important for providing resources for the family and education can become secondary. In these conflict areas, respondents are more likely to agree that education is more important for boys than for girls. SPs detail the large number of obstacles to delivering education. Displacement and fleeing danger creates problems with hunger, illness, and safety. SPs discuss the variability of resources, the scarcity of schools and teachers, and the uncertainty of life in South Sudan. They also discuss triumphs they have experienced and suggest changes or interventions that could increase educational opportunities.

The fundamental relationship between art and resilience is striking in this passage and in the reflections shared by other artists. This paper aims to attempt to piece together the fragmented and insecure realities in South Sudan through the lens of different artists. The paper argues that focusing on art is an important way into a deeper more nuanced picture of how women and men find and maintain resilience in humanitarian contexts.

The data is qualitatively collected through an innovative art-based creative method known as story circles. The circles consisted of artists who shared what their art form meant to them.

The picture that emerges contrasts starkly against the dark narratives that commonly portray South Sudan. Art making spaces and the outputs that come from them are cultural resources often overlooked by humanitarian stakeholders and yet, as the authors show, hold the potential to support more locally rooted and responsive approaches to resilience building.

Very little research has been conducted on the ways in which people in South Sudan draw on and find resilience in art and art making.

This paper examines the drivers of brain gain by investigating the motivations of migrants who plan to return and contribute to their home country. It focuses on highly skilled Sudanese migrants in Japan, including a group of “plan-to-return” migrants (P-group), who intend to gain knowledge abroad that they will use to contribute to their homeland upon their return.

The participants are 24 highly skilled Sudanese migrants in Japan, 10 of whom are part of the P-group. To understand their motivation to contribute to their home country, the study applies the qualitative life course approach, using Elder's four life course themes: lives in time and space, the timing of lives, linked lives and human agency.

The P-group is characterised by a high level of motivation for self-development, which motivates them to study abroad. The analysis finds that the P-group's drive to contribute had been nurtured by a spirit of mutual aid in Sudanese society, which emphasises Islamic values and social ties. Religious norms, personal interactions and emotional ties to Sudan are especially influential on the P-group's motivation to contribute to their home society.

This study identifies drivers that lead to brain gain. Whereas previous studies have noted the relationship between return intentions and willingness to contribute to the home countries; they have not investigated influences on motivations to contribute. The results suggest that Sudan might already possess a system for local human resource development to encourage brain gain.

State and national education initiatives have significantly increased expectations of students’ non-fiction reading and writing. These initiatives provide the space for potential interdisciplinary units in English/language arts and social studies/history centered on content area reading and writing. To do so, teachers must locate age-appropriate, historically representative curricular materials and implement discipline-specific writing prompts. To guide elementary teachers’ instruction, we select a novel, underused topic: the birth of the Republic of South Sudan. Age-appropriate children’s trade books are coupled with diverse informational texts—oral histories, current event news articles, and artwork—to extend the trade books’ narratives into the realm of current events. We suggest content area literacy strategies, share anecdotes from their application in the classroom, and recommend engaging, inquiry-based writing prompts that induce students to revisit understandings derived from close readings of the trade books and informational texts. In doing so, all texts and tasks explicitly are connected to different elements of the state and national initiatives in order to help teachers meet the rigorous standards.

Arguing that a gendered invisibility surrounding climate justice contributes to the overall vulnerability and burden placed upon the ability of women from disadvantaged communities, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of developing a participative gender framework for climate justice with the potential to address the policy and programme vulnerability gap within climate change and conflict in Sudan’s Savannah Belt.

In utilising gender responsive discourse analysis, along with setting out the history of gender engagement within social forestry, this paper examines both the method of Sudan’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) development and its content.

The paper’s findings demonstrate that the REDD+ programme in Sudan provides ample evidence of the importance of integrating climate justice and gender approaches to policy, programming and projects through ensuring women and local community participation at all levels and interaction within policy and programme development, along with its implementation.

The paper is theoretical in nature but did draw upon case studies and consultations, and the author was involved in some of the research.

The paper provides a positive and arguably original example of social forestry within the Savannah Belt and its utilisation as a best practice that has fed into Sudan’s REDD+ Proposal/Policy Document so as to potentially drive and streamline similar such initiatives across Sudan.

The purpose of this paper is to portray four scenarios for the future of Sudan in the year 2012. On the basis of these scenarios it aims to draw a number of conclusions on the future of Sudan and the way ahead.

The paper uses the Shell methodology for scenario building and is based on five scenario workshops held in Sudan, one in The Netherlands, interviews and literature research. The four scenarios not only intend to provide an overview of what is likely to happen, but also aim to be plausible, challenging and creative.

The paper finds that the future of Sudan is likely to remain violent and that the most optimistic scenario is also the least likely. It concludes that, although outside mediation and assistance in the organization of elections are needed, the critical difference between a successful and an unsuccessful outcome will to a large extent be determined by whether the South has a stable, cooperative and confident leadership.

The paper provides a number of policy recommendations for the international community to prevent the worst from happening and to be prepared for what may come.

The paper aims to fill the gap in future foresight with regard to Sudan and for this purpose utilized the knowledge among the Sudanese themselves.