IDEA conducted a training workshop for political parties in Khartoum, Sudan from 8-10 December 2007. This workshop is a continuation to the first workshop on “Political party funding” that took place in October 2007. While the first workshop focused on the theoretical and comparative aspects of the party finance the second one dealt with more practical and relevant (finance and fund-raising) issues to political parties in Sudan.
The overall objective of the workshop was to provide a platform for parties to discuss issues pertaining to party funding and fundraising ways and mechanisms. The specific training objectives of the workshop were;
- To highlights the importance of party funding
- To enlighten the participants about different models and ways of fund raising.
- To enable participants to look at their own experience in the light of other courtiers’ experience.
- To expose the trainees to other countries experiences on party finance in order to infer lessons from success stories and avoid pitfalls of failed ones
- To create opportunities and facilitate cross-party communication on issues currently facing political parties in Sudan
- To come out with recommendations and suggestions for future activities.
The workshop had 30 participants from the six participating Political Parties namely; Al-Umma Party, National Congress Party, Popular Congress Party, Democratic Union Party, the Sudan Communist Party and the Sudan People Liberation Movement SPLM. In addition to the six parties, the workshop was also attended by members of the media, representatives of the British Embassy in Khartoum, and representatives for political parties’ leader.
The training workshop was facilitated by the following experts:
- Mr Emad Yousef, International IDEA, Arab World Project Manager
- Dr. Edde Maloka, Political Scientist, a former President of African Association of Political Science and an expert from South Africa,
- Dr. Kattak Malla, IDEA Consultant (Political Parties expert, Nepal)
- Dr Atta Al-Battahani, International IDEA Sudan Project Manager
- Dr. Haider Ibrahim, Director of Sudanese Studies Centre, (commissioned to write a paper on “Finance and Party funding in Sudan – presented at the workshop by Atta Al-Battahani)
