Keep Eyes on Sudan: Higher Education in Times of Conflict
Join the Georgetown African Studies Program, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the Georgetown Conflict Resolution Program, the Gender+ Justice Initiative and Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security for the third event in a series of programming on Sudan. This event is also sponsored by the MESA Global Academy and the African Studies Association.
This event features a discussion of a recent Rift Valley Institute report by Muna Elgadal and Rebecca Glade, “Research in Displacement: The Impact of War on Sudan’s Higher Education and Academic Research Community.” The outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 has led to catastrophic destruction which has threatened critical institutions across the country. The report assesses the damage of higher education in Sudan and the mass displacement of its students and faculty. It also highlights the experience of Sudanese academics and students who have been displaced as they continue to work and attempt to rebuild their lives.
Rebecca Glade received her PhD in African history at Columbia University, where she wrote her dissertation, “Sudanese Political Movements and the Struggle for the State, 1964-1985.” She has published on the history of the student movement at University of Khartoum in Africa, and she is currently a Visiting Researcher at Makerere University in the department of History, Archaeology, and Heritage Studies and Managing Editor of the Makerere Historical Journal.
Elobaid A. Elobaid is currently working with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as a Senior Advisor on the Human Rights of Migrant Workers with focus on the GCC countries. He served as a Representative of OHCHR for Yemen (2017 -2020) and a founding Head of the United Nations Human Rights Training and Documentation Centre for South-west Asia and the Arab Region (2011 -2017). He holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Khartoum, a Master’s Degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and a PhD in International Law of Human Rights from McGill University in Canada. His doctoral thesis focused on the relationship between human rights and cultural diversity in Muslim Africa. He worked as a lawyer in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, and he also taught international law of human rights, international protection of minorities, public international law, and Islamic law at McGill University before joining the United Nations in 2004. Moreover, he also worked as an Expert/Advisor on Governance and Legal and Judicial Reform for the Canadian Government (CIDA), the United Nations, the US Government (USAID) and various other institutions in relation to Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, the GCC countries, etc.