More than 400,000 people were displaced in Sudan in 2022, mostly because of conflicts in the western Darfur and southern Blue Nile regions, the UN said on Tuesday.
The International Organisation for Migration said most of the 418,000 people displaced last year — about 314,000 — left their homes because of conflict.
Blue Nile had the biggest share of displacements, with 30.6 per cent, followed by West Darfur with 22.8 per cent and South Darfur at 11.2 per cent.
Another 103,000 people were displaced because of flooding during the rainy season, said the IOM.
The newly displaced join more than three million people who have been displaced over the years in Sudan, a vast Afro-Arab nation of more than 40 million people that has seen little respite from resinous civil wars since it gained independence from Britain in 1956.
Sudan's displaced typically live in squalid camps on the outskirts of major cities, including Khartoum. Many of them depend almost entirely on relief handouts. Their presence, especially in Darfur, frequently leads to tensions with locals and their camps are often the target of deadly raids by the ethnic or tribal group that forced them away from their homes in the first place.
Prominent among Sudan's post-independence conflicts is the civil war that raged in South Sudan for more than 20 years, making it Africa's longest. That conflict ended with a 2005 peace accord that paved the way for the secession of the mainly animist and Christian south in 2011.
The war in Darfur was fought in the 2000s, leaving at least 300,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced, according to UN figures.
Both conflicts pitted ethnic Africans against what they see as the unfair political and economic privileges enjoyed by the Arabized and Muslim north of Sudan and its ruling clique in Khartoum.
The war in Blue Nile province has raged for years, with rebels in control of vast swathes of territory.
Deadly outbreaks of sectarian or tribal violence continue to bedevil Sudan's outlaying regions to this day, including Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile, where the same root causes behind their conflicts remain in play.
Sudan's military signed a peace deal with several rebel groups in October 2020. However, the groups that control large swathes of land and in possession of firepower to reckon with are refusing to join the process despite repeated pleas by Khartoum for them to enter negotiations.
Significantly, the rebels whose leaders signed the 2020 agreement are yet to be assimilated into the armed forces as promised and have in some instances contributed to outbreaks of lawlessness or violence in their home regions or in the capital Khartoum.
A 2021 military coup that upended Sudan's democratic transition has created a security vacuum in Sudan's outlaying regions and denied the country the western funds it had been promised to implement the 2020 peace deal, including the integration into the armed forces of the former rebels.
Sudan's western backers suspended billions of dollars' worth of aid to Sudan in response to the coup and insist only when a credible, civilian-led transitional government is in place will they resume their assistance.
FIXTURES
Fixtures for Round 15 (all times UAE)
Friday
Inter Milan v AS Roma (11.45pm)
Saturday
Atalanta v Verona (6pm)
Udinese v Napoli (9pm)
Lazio v Juventus (11.45pm)
Sunday
Lecce v Genoa (3.30pm)
Sassuolo v Cagliari (6pm)
SPAL v Brescia (6pm)
Torino v Fiorentina (6pm)
Sampdoria v Parma (9pm)
Bologna v AC Milan (11.45pm)
Coal Black Mornings
Brett Anderson
Little Brown Book Group
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
