Individuals and organizations may use, download, transmit, or print Archive material for purposes of research, education or non-profit activities, but not for commercial gain.

Every effort has been made to establish the copyright status of documents included in the Archive and obtain permission for their republication. Please inform us of any misattribution of rights or authorship. Documents will be withdrawn from the Archive on request from rights holders.

The Sudan Open Archive, the Rift Valley Institute (Rift Valley Research Ltd) and supporting organizations accept no responsibility or liability with regard to the accuracy, copyright compliance or legality of material contained in the collection.

The Sudan Open Archive (SOA) is designed and implemented by the Kenya and UK-based Rift Valley Institute, working with institutional partners in the north and south of Sudan. The Archive was created by DL Consulting using open-source Greenstone archive software developed by the New Zealand Digital Library project at the University of Waikato. It is maintained with support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Other partners include UNICEF, UNEP and the Southern Sudan Centre for Census, Statistics and Evaluation.

The Rift Valley Institute seeks partnerships with institutions and individuals in Sudan and elsewhere for further expansion and development of the Archive. Offers of sponsorship for individual documents or collections of material are also welcome. Please contact the Archive Director.

Thanks to the following individuals and organizations for their assistance in the establishment of the Archive and for permission for the reproduction of copyright material:

Bellario Ahoy, Khalid el Amin, Stefan Boddie, Mike Cave, Sophie Cleave, Compactive Digital Services (Budapest), Zoe Cormack, Jean-Francois Darcq, Marilyn Deegan, Michael Dewsnip, John Thompson, Sebastiana Etzo, Tim Fison, Isabel Fonseca, Henry Louis Gates Jnr., Hugh Greathead, Makila James, Douglas Johnson, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, Jonathan Kingdon, Anikó Király, Samson Kwaje, Sean Loughna, Zoe Marriage, Andrew Mawson, James Morton, Margaret Nduati, the Open Knowledge Network, Mohamed Osman, Faruk Rana, Save The Children (UK) South Sudan, Buzz Sharp, Victor Tanner, Hamish Tristram, Neil Turner, UNICEF,  UNEP, Ferdinand von Hapsburg, Emily Walmsley, Justin Willis, Paul Wilson, Wairimu Mburathi, Victoria Goodban, Gill Lusk, Gabriella Gray, James Birch, Peter Dangerfield.

The first phase of the Archive involved the digitisation of technical reports on aid and development from Operation Lifeline Sudan (1989 - 2005). A library of contemporary and historical literature on environmental issues was added in 2006; a collection of reports on local peace processes in 2007. They will be followed by further ethnographic writing, grammars and dictionaries of Sudanese languages, and collections of documents in Arabic.

The work of the Archive is guided by an international advisory board composed of Sudanese scholars, international area specialists and technical experts.