Debating Ideas is a new section that aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It will offer debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
Credit: Arab Weekly
Current tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE have encouraged a deepening of diplomatic relations between the Saudi government and the transitional authority in Sudan. However, these foreign policy developments have not engendered a shift in the military’s approach and attitude towards its civilian counterpart for the benefit of the transition period.
Saudi Arabia is deepening its influence in Sudan. As chair of the Friends of Sudan Conference in August 2020, the platform allowed it, among other things, to influence the Sudanese Revolutionary Forces (SRF)—a coalition of armed groups who represent the peripheries of Sudan—to sign the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA). Recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE will further encourage Saudi foreign policy interventions in Sudan through deepening its relations with both the civilian and armed components of the transitional government. This move comes with the possibility of the Sudanese military abandoning its alliances with the UAE, allowing Saudi Arabia considerable influence over Sudanese foreign policy.
Saudi Arabia’s recent foreign policy interventions in Sudan started with it announcing a $3 billion bilateral increase in funding to Sudan’s various sectors. Notwithstanding that the country is pressed for foreign reserves, these funds come with a concern that Sudan is caught between Saudi Arabia and UAE tensions, polarising competing segments of the transitional government, and further undermining the transition period.
An additional source of concern is the Sudanese military’s recent restoration of relations with both Turkey and Qatar, signalling the military’s intentions to continue to hold power in Sudan through positioning itself with the Gulf’s interests beyond the supposed conclusion of the transition period in 2023–24.
Soft power: the promise of agricultural investments
Saudi Arabia’s proactive interventionist approach to Sudanese domestic and international affairs is not just about managing regional power axes. Saudi initiated agriculture investments in Sudan to protect its own food security while tactically taking steps to reduce UAE’s influence over the Sudanese government. The interest of both countries diverged with Saudi Arabia giving priority to its national interests that are tied to Saudi Vision 2030 over its alliance with the UAE. Sudan tilts the balance of regional power because of its geo-strategic location between the Red Sea, and East and West Africa—areas that the UAE has been steadily expanding its political and economic influences into.
To exert its influence, Saudi Arabia used its financial clout to encourage creditors, partners of the World Bank, to approve Sudan’s debt relief at the Paris Conference on 17 May. As a result, and in a step that demonstratedSaudi’s deepening influence over Sudan’s new political elite, Hadi Idriss, a member of Sudan’s Security Council and chairman of the SRF, paid a visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2021 where he met with Saudi officials. The outcome of the meetings was an agreement that Sudan and Saudi Arabia will create a joint company to coordinate $3 billion worth of investments in Sudan, and that Saudi will commit to sending relief teams to various regions of Sudan.
Meanwhile, the UAE’s influence over the transitional government is exerted primarily through the military leadership of the transitional council; Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Lt. General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemetti” whom Saudi Arabia backs as well. Leaders of the civilian arm of the transitional government, the Freedom and Change Collation (FFC), currently members of Prime Minister Hamdok’s cabinet of ministers’ members of the Sovereign Council (SC)—Sudan’s highest transitional body—are also part of these regional arrangements.
Saudi Arabia’s backing of Sudan has encouraged Saudi agriculture companies such as the Rajhi Group to invest further in Sudan. It was reported that its executives held meetings on 17 and 28 June with Minni Minawi, Darfur’s new governor as per the JPA, member of the SRF and head of the Sudan Liberation Movement-Minni Minawi (SLM-MM). Further to that, Minawi’s visit to Saudi Arabia in June was meant to encourage Saudi investments in the war-torn region of Darfur.
With Sudan being admitted to the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) on 30 June paving the way for substantive debt forgiveness of Sudan’s debts by the international community, which stand at around $60 billion, Saudi’s investments in Sudan are safeguarded for the foreseeable time. That is because the main impediment to Sudan receiving debt relief was the country being included on the US State Sponsor of Terrorism (STT) list that discouraged foreign banks to carry out transactions with Sudan in order to comply with US laws. Sudan being removed sends a signal to foreign banks and companies that doing businesses in Sudan will not result in them facing legal challenges with US authorities.
Based on these developments, both Gibril Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)—a signatory armed faction to the JPA—and Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, who is also a leader within the SRF, and Al-Hadi Mohamed, Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, held a joint conference on 9 July with Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund and 40 Saudi companies in Saudi Arabia. The outcome of the conference is an agreement to open 15 branches of Saudi banks in Sudan and to establish a ministerial committee with the intention to facilitate more investments in Sudan, further encouraging Saudi Arabia to increase its influence in Sudan above the $35 billion invested in Sudan as of 2020, with $26.5 billion previously invested in agriculture alone.
Soft power in the Red Sea
To further its own interest of expanding tourism on the Red Sea coastline to meet its Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has doubled down its influence in Sudan, the troubled and conflict ridden Red Seastate, through investments and development projects. Sudan’s 750 kilometres coastline adjacent to Saudi Arabia makes the region and the state prone to Saudi’s domestic and regional interests.
Another intention of the investments is to compete with the UAE over control of the Red Sea port. The competition became more visible since Saudi investors shared a plan to build a new port in Sudan’s Red Sea coast thereby challenging the UAE’s Dubai Port conglomerate to control Red Sea ports leading to the Bab Al-Mandab straits and securing the Gulf of Aden. BothSaudi and the UAE are competing over acquiring ports in the Red Sea region. That is because the UAE has transformed Jabel Ali port into an influential port between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.[i]
These competitive bids over Red Sea and regional politics through foreign policy interventions are not unique to Sudan. Saudi Arabia is developing deeper ties with Oman through a number of agreements and the opening of a direct 800 kilometre highway between both countries. The highway should allow Saudi Arabia to reduce its dependence on exporting its oil through the Strait of Hormoz, exposing Saudi trade to Iran’s blockades as was previously the case.
The competition over controlling Port Sudan is more likely now than ever before with Saudi Arabia reaching an agreement with Sudan to develop an extensive industrial free zone around the port that includes connecting it to 800,000 hectares of arable area in the southeast near the Atbara river in Sudan.[ii]
Loss of the UAE
It seems that the UAE hast lost its influence over both Lt. General Al-Burhan, the chairman of the SC, and the commander of the Sudanese military and his deputy Lt. General Hemedti who follow Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy direction for now. UAE’s move to restore its relations with Qatar and improving relations with Turkey this year are a direct response to its tense relations with Saudi Arabia.
This will engender a dramatic change in Sudanese foreign policy caught between oscillating Gulf politics as it was the UAE that engineered the boycott against Qatar. The restoration of relations, especially with Qatar, seemed to have been encouraged as a result of Saudi Arabia ending its boycott with Qatar in January earlier this year.
Further proof that the UAE has been losing influence over Sudan is Lt. General Al-Burhan refusing a proposal by the UAE to divide the disputed Fashaga lands with Ethiopia while the border areas are disputed. The UAE tabled a proposal of dividing the Fashaga lands as 40% for Sudan, 40% for UAE, and 20% for Ethiopia as part of the initiative to end border clashes between Sudan and Ethiopia. Al-Burhan’s decisions are domestically motivated as well; his fear of plummeting popular credibility will undermine his plans to undo Sudan’s transition to democracy, starting border clashes with Ethiopia that he cannot win, all in support of his own presidential ambitions.
Although there are tensions arising between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their vie to control the Red Sea region, Saudi Arabia overtaking UAE’s role in Sudan does not change much of the Sudanese military plans to control the country’s transition process or take charge of Sudan after the transition period ends, even though an extension of the transition period is more likely than not.
EndNotes
[i]Author interview with an opponent to the former Bashir regime (phone interview 22 July 2021].
EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government’s $8.6-billion plan to fast-track building new schools will include a pilot project to incentivize private ones.
Smith said the ultimate goal is to create thousands of new spaces for an exploding number of new students at a reduced cost to taxpayers.
“We want to put all of the different school options on the same level playing field,” Smith told a news conference in Calgary Wednesday.
Smith did not offer details about how much private school construction costs might be incentivized, but said she wants to see what independent schools might pitch.
“We’re putting it out there as a pilot to see if there is any interest in partnering on the same basis that we’ll be building the other schools with the different (public) school boards,” she said.
Smith made the announcement a day after she announced the multibillion-dollar school build to address soaring numbers of new students.
By quadrupling the current school construction budget to $8.6 billion, the province aims to offer up 30 new schools each year, adding 50,000 new student spaces within three years.
The government also wants to build or expand five charter school buildings per year, starting in next year’s budget, adding 12,500 spaces within four years.
Currently, non-profit independent schools can get some grants worth about 70 per cent of what students in public schools receive per student from the province.
However, those grants don’t cover major construction costs.
John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges of Alberta, said he’s interested in having conversations with the government about incentives.
He said the province has never directly funded major capital costs for their facilities before, and said he doesn’t think the association has ever asked for full capital funding.
He said community or religious groups traditionally cover those costs, but they can help take the pressure off the public or separate systems.
“We think we can do our part,” Jagersma said.
Dennis MacNeil, head of the Public School Boards Association of Alberta, said they welcome the new funding, but said money for private school builds would set a precedent that could ultimately hurt the public system.
“We believe that the first school in any community should be a public school, because only public schools accept all kids that come through their doors and provide programming for them,” he said.
Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said if public dollars are going to be spent on building private schools, then students in the public system should be able to equitably access those schools.
“No other province spends as much money on private schools as Alberta does, and it’s at the detriment of public schools, where over 90 per cent of students go to school,” he said.
Schilling also said the province needs about 5,000 teachers now, but the government announcement didn’t offer a plan to train and hire thousands more over the next few years.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi on Tuesday praised the $8.6 billion as a “generational investment” in education, but said private schools have different mandates and the result could be schools not being built where they are needed most.
“Using that money to build public schools is more efficient, it’s smarter, it’s faster, and it will serve students better,” Nenshi said.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides’ office declined to answer specific questions about the pilot project Wednesday, saying it’s still under development.
“Options and considerations for making capital more affordable for independent schools are being explored,” a spokesperson said. “Further information on this program will be forthcoming in the near future.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
OTTAWA – Health Minister Mark Holland urged a committee of senators Wednesday not to tweak the pharmacare bill he carefully negotiated with the NDP earlier this year.
The bill would underpin a potential national, single-payer pharmacare program and allow the health minister to negotiate with provinces and territories to cover some diabetes and contraceptive medications.
It was the result of weeks of political negotiations with the New Democrats, who early this year threatened to pull out of their supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals unless they could agree on the wording.
“Academics and experts have suggested amendments to this bill to most of us here, I think,” Independent Senator Rosemary Moodie told Holland at a meeting of the Senate’s social affairs committee.
Holland appeared before the committee as it considers the bill. He said he respects the role of the Senate, but that the pharmacare legislation is, in his view, “a little bit different.”
“It was balanced on a pinhead,” he told the committee.
“This is by far — and I’ve been involved in a lot of complex things — the most difficult bit of business I’ve ever been in. Every syllable, every word in this bill was debated and argued over.”
Holland also asked the senators to move quickly to pass the legislation, to avoid lending credence to Conservative critiques that the program is a fantasy.
When asked about the Liberals’ proposed pharmacare program for diabetes and birth control, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has often responded that the program isn’t real. Once the legislation is passed, the minister must negotiate with every provincial government to actually administer the program, which could take many months.
“If we spend a long time wordsmithing and trying to make the legislation perfect, then the criticism that it’s not real starts to feel real for people, because they don’t actually get drugs, they don’t get an improvement in their life,” Holland told the committee.
He told the committee that one of the reasons he signed a preliminary deal with his counterpart in British Columbia was to help answer some of the Senate’s questions about how the program would work in practice.
The memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and B.C. lays out how to province will use funds from the pharmacare bill to expand on its existing public coverage of contraceptives to include hormone replacement therapy to treat menopausal symptoms.
The agreement isn’t binding, and Holland would still need to formalize talks with the province when and if the Senate passes the bill based on any changes the senators decide to make.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s NDP are accusing the government of prioritizing landlords over residents who need an affordable place to live, as the opposition party tables a bill aimed at addressing the housing crisis.
NDP Leader Claudia Chender took aim at the Progressive Conservatives Wednesday ahead of introducing two new housing bills, saying the government “seems to be more focused on helping wealthy developers than everyday families.”
The Minister of Service Nova Scotia has said the government’s own housing legislation will “balance” the needs of tenants and landlords by extending the five per cent cap on rent until the end of 2027. But critics have called the cap extension useless because it allows landlords to raise rents past five per cent on fixed-term leases as long as property owners sign with a new renter.
Chender said the rules around fixed-term leases give landlords the “financial incentive to evict,” resulting in more people pushed into homelessness. She also criticized the part of the government bill that will permit landlords to issue eviction notices after three days of unpaid rent instead of 15.
The Tories’ housing bill, she said, represents a “shocking admission from this government that they are more concerned with conversations around landlord profits … than they are about Nova Scotians who are trying to find a home they can afford.”
The premier’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also included in the government’s new housing legislation are clearer conditions for landlords to end a tenancy, such as criminal behaviour, disturbing fellow tenants, repeated late rental payments and extraordinary damage to a unit. It will also prohibit tenants from subletting units for more than they are paying.
The first NDP bill tabled Wednesday would create a “homelessness task force” to gather data to try to prevent homelessness, and the second would set limits on evictions during the winter and for seniors who meet income eligibility requirements for social housing and have lived in the same home for more than 10 years.
The NDP has previously tabled legislation that would create a $500 tax credit for renters and tie rent control to housing units instead of the individual.
Earlier this week landlords defended the use of the contentious fixed-term leases, saying they need to have the option to raise rent higher than five per cent to maintain their properties and recoup costs. Landlord Yarviv Gadish, who manages three properties in the Halifax area, called the use of fixed-term leases “absolutely essential” in order to keep his apartments presentable and to get a return on his investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
