Introduction

Federalism as a form of governance not only enjoys a good reputation in donor countries, but is becoming more and more popular in Africa. At first sight, federalism appears to be the best option for governance in an African context: federalism promises a method to deal democratically with a multitude of groups of diverse histories and identities within a given national entity. Accordingly, in the last decades many African states – South Africa and Ethiopia among others – have opted for a federal rather than a central allocation of power and structures of decision-making. Like other countries before – India, Belgium, Canada, and Spain, to name a few – they developed from unitary states as governments’ response to alleviate threats of secession by territorially clustered minorities. These ‘holding together’ federations (Stepan 1999: 24) are characterised by granting some sub-units particular domains of sovereignty, for example, over language and cultural rights in an asymmetric federation, while maintaining a broad scope of action for the central government and majorities.

Sudan has become the most recent and very specific example of an African federal system. The CPA and subsequently the interim national constitution and the interim constitution of southern Sudan (ICSS) define a decentralised system of governance (Arts 1 (2), 50 ICSS) in the attempt to cope with the exceptional diversity of Sudan's population in ethnic, religious, and linguistic respects. The view over the border to the Ethiopian regional state of Gambella may provide some lessons on the opportunities and limitations connected with the federal experiment in the neighbouring country.