Sudan: Elections

Mr. Drew
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Sudanese government on the allocation of funding to non-governmental organisations to support the forthcoming elections.

Mr. Ivan Lewis
We regularly discuss support to elections with the National Elections Commission (NEC), the body charged by the Sudanese Government with delivering elections. The NEC has not yet finalised the budget for elections, which we expect will include allocations of funding for non-government organisations.

We are also in close contact with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which oversees basket funds provided by donors to support elections. We want significant funds to be made available for civic education—the bulk of these activities would be implemented by non-government organisations—and we have emphasised this to UNDP.