On June 10, IDLO signed an agreement with the European Union to confirm a grant of 500,000 Euro to support IDLO’s Project ‘Capacity Building for the Judiciary of Southern Sudan.’

The people of southern Sudan will be offered a referendum in January 2011to determine whether southern Sudan will become an independent country. However, decades of conflict prior to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 severely decimated government capacity, and there is an urgent need to rebuild in preparation for the potentially historic choice to be made on January 9.

Beginning in June 2009 IDLO has implemented a program of assistance to the Judiciary of Southern Sudan and the Ministry of Legal Affairs and Constitutional Development to ready them to fulfill their roles post-referendum. The program includes training, development of legal resources and the establishment of a legal training institute.

The European Union joins the Government of the Netherlands and UNDP as co-funders for IDLO in southern Sudan.