Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent steps her Department has taken to support civil society in Sudan.

DFID Sudan primarily engages and supports civil society through the Local Partnership and Dialogue Programme (LPDP) with a total support of £12 million which aims to build the capacity of non-state actors to demand and deliver more inclusive, democratic & accountable governance. Over the past 3 years, the programme has delivered the following:

• Institutional capacity building - tailored to specific needs of 25 Civil Society Organisations (CSO).

• Funding CSOs to pursue governance issues such as basic service delivery (e.g. health and education), environment and rule of law.

• Empowerment of Youth Leaders - through training and mentoring for their empowerment, training more than 60 activists from civil society, political parties and youth-led organisations/initiatives, by raising their awareness of democratic values and practices.

• Facilitation of dialogue among and within 20 political groups with focus on those with social and political divides to enhance political dialogue processes such as the National Dialogue and the Peace negotiation process in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan States.