The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has operated in West Darfur, Sudan, since August 2004. Initially, the support was given through a World Food Programme to respond to the immediate food needs of 153,000 conflict-affected residents and IDPs in Western Jebel Mara. This project was expanded to include registration and information on behalf of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). However, following the attacks and relocation of the DRC office from Golo to Nertiti in March 2006 (as a result of Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad), the scale of the DRC operation had to be reduced to 33,000 beneficiaries.

In 2005, DRC expanded its activities by implementing a Protection and Livelihood Program (P.L.P.) in the rural area of Zalingei and, during 2006, in the North of Wadi Salih area. The P.L.P. is largely supported by Danida, but since February 2005 it has also been supported by UNHCR and FAO.

The current DRC programme is targeting 33,000 IDPs and 18,000 rural households in Northern Wadi Sali, Zalingei, Azoum and Jebel Mara localities in Darfur. It aims at ensuring protection and access to humanitarian assistance for the conflict-affected people in the rural areas. Using the concept of 'protection through presence', DRC's presence in the rural areas is aimed at rebuilding the livelihoods of the conflict-affected populations through 'non-discriminatory' activities that encourage and promote peaceful co-existence between the Arab and African communities.

At the same time we work with capacity-building of these communities, enabling them to determine their needs. Through community mapping exercises, uninhabited and inhabited villages are identified and the process of return is monitored. Within inhabited villages, area councils composed of both Arab and African tribes are created to promote dialogue and co-existence. Through the area councils, the communities identify common and unique needs and develop Community Action Plans.

Needs that fall within DRC's competence are: rehabilitation/construction of schools, community centres and hand-dug wells. Furthermore, we use the Community Action Plans to encourage other international NGOs to address needs outside our competence.

Individual household needs are met through the provision of food aid (in the case of IDPs in Nertiti), basic Non-Food Items and agricultural inputs like seed, tools and basic veterinary services. Activities aimed at social rehabilitation include adult literacy and women and youth activities while income generation is limited to provision of vocational skills. Some limited in-kind grants are provided to encourage income generation.

Outline of the conflict
The conflict in Darfur is labelled a 'protection crisis', due to the level and type of violence perpetrated against civilians. The origin of the conflict, i.e. struggles over essential livelihood and natural resources, have been worsened by the proliferation of small arms and militarization of young people. It has changed traditional relationships between ethnic groups and politicised them, giving local conflicts a much wider, more complicated political dimension.

The current conflict started in 2003 after years of fighting among different Darfur groups. In February and March 2003 two armed insurgent groups, the SLM/A and JEM, launched attacks against the government forces (GoS forces) and other selected targets. Following the attacks, the GoS 'outsourced' the counter-insurgency to local militias. Most of the militias were made up of camel herding nomads from the north, former Islamic legionnaires and tribal people.
Various peace talks have taken place, but so far neither peace talks nor the deployment of peace keeping missions from AU and UN have helped putting and end to the conflict.

Dafur – a global responsibility
The global community is beginning to understand the consequences of rising carbon emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels. Consequently, the Darfur conflict is now generally accepted as a conflict which – in some measure – has been spurred by climate change i.e. global warming causing massive environmental degradation in Darfur over the past sixty years.