What do you know about the Darfur region of the Sudan?

How does political instability affect development? Learning Objectives To understand how political instability can affect a country’s ability to develop. To know how political instability affected Darfur.

How does political instability affect development? Get this key idea into your notes: There are three main political factors that slow development: If a country has an unstable government it might not invest in things like healthcare, education and improving the economy. This leads to slow development (or no development at all). Some governments are corrupt. This means that some people in the country get richer (by breaking the law) while the others stay poor and have a low quality of life. If there's war in a country the country loses money that could be spent on development - equipment is expensive, buildings get destroyed and fewer people work (because they're fighting). War also directly reduces the quality of life of the people in the country.

Darfur… Darfur is a region in western Sudan in Northern Africa. Because of the war in Darfur waged by the Sudanese government against the non-Arab indigenous population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency from 2003 to 2009/2010. Watch the four video case studies in order to find out some background information on the Dafur Conflict.

Political Instability In small groups read, the background information on Darfur, the interviews with the young people in the refugee camp and the information from Oxfam about what they are doing to help.

Political Instability Having now watched the video clips and read the information answer the following questions: Why is there political instability in Darfur? What problems do the young people experience? In what ways has the political instability affected development in Darfur? What are Oxfam’s main priorities? How will these priorities help development?

Political Instability Extend your thinking… Imagine you are a journalist visiting Darfur in 2015. What do you think will have changed? How developed will Darfur be now?

Write the Quiz Write quiz questions for the answers below. Darfur Oxfam 2003 2 million people Chad 200,000 people 4.5 million people 4 years 26,000