The United Nations is engaged across a broad range of disciplines in trying to help the people of Sudan achieve peace and security following decades of devastating conflict. Diplomats, peacekeepers, relief workers, and others – all have important roles to play.

The Department of Political Affairs is currently assisting in the diplomatic push for a lasting peace settlement in Darfur. Staff of DPA are deployed as part of the Joint Mediation Support Team which provides assistance to the mediation efforts of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, and his African Union counterpart, Salim Ahmed Salim.

DPA previously provided staff expertise to the mediation effort led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which on 9 January 2005 produced a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending Sudan’s long North-South conflict. DPA was the lead U.N. entity on Sudan throughout the negotiations, providing support and political guidance to the United Nations Advance Mission in the Sudan (UNAMIS).

With the signing of the CPA between the Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, UNAMIS was replaced by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), managed the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations. UNMIS is assisting the Government of National Unity in building sustainable peace. This requires the timely implementation of the CPA in the South, while also rooting it in the East and West.