The Character of Resource Wealth on Contesting a Relationship between the Centre and Regions in Sudan

This paper challenges to identify the origins behind the weakness of the relationship between the center and regions in Sudan, through examining the major principles of resource governance mainly during federal system and interim period following the singing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. It demonstrates that, within the country, successive constitutions and their relevant laws have empowered the center over resource governance and weakened lower units and thus, they fuel contestation between the center and regions. The main objectives of this paper are to categorize allocation of power over resource between different tires of government, and to clarify institutional capacity of revenue distributive among regions as well. Content analysis is used to analyze a body of data that contains document, reports, articles and interviews. The paper shows that centralized nature of the government influences tailoring of equitable allocation of power over resource. Wealth sharing’ institutions emergent during interim period of peace such as Fiscal, Finance, Allocation and Monitoring Commission were found weak, consequently, were impeded shortly after peace collapsed in 20011, as well as the absence of adequate, fair criteria challenges appropriate allocation of wealth among regions. The paper also finds that presence of authorized devolution system is only the way to secure reasonable distribution of power between the center and regions, adequate distribution of revenue among regions and normalize the relationship between different tiers of government. This work contributes to knowledge as it deepens the understanding and advance current debate on the contesting relationship between the center and regions in Sudan.