These efforts, which took place at the level of the summit mechanism initiated by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi with his counterparts from regional and international organizations, at the ministerial level, and among concerned agencies with their counterparts, as well as through comprehensive engagement with Sudanese societal components, including the military, have been crystallized.

All of these efforts culminated in the Cairo Conference held in July 2024, where the Sudanese crisis was examined, aiming to reach a consensus among the Sudanese parties to contribute to overcoming the crisis that revolves around internal divisions and conflicts among all components of Sudanese society, including political forces, parties, and groups.

Numerous platforms have addressed the crisis, and initiatives have been proposed by regional and international organizations. The most prominent platforms that have made some progress, albeit limited and to varying degrees, were the Jeddah platform (comprising Saudi Arabia and the United States) in 2023 and the Cairo platform in July 2024.

The first, through a memorandum of understanding signed in May 2023 between representatives of the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, reached an agreement to cease fire, evacuate buildings and homes from the Rapid Support Forces, and gather forces outside cities. The armed forces, through the Sovereignty Council and the Sudanese government, which manages the affairs of the state and is internationally recognized de facto, insist on the need to implement what was decided in the Jeddah platform under this memorandum.

The second, the Cairo conference in July 2024, introduced a radically different approach from the traditional ones adopted in other initiatives. The Cairo conference came with a community initiative based on Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue with the comprehensive participation of all components of Sudanese society, including representatives of political forces, parties, civil society, and revolutionary movements, especially the active ones, and with the comprehensive dimensions of the Sudanese crisis, focusing on the track of ceasefire, the track of addressing the humanitarian situation, and the political track. It also included the participation of regional and international countries and organizations concerned with the Sudanese issue as observers and guarantors of the conference outcomes.

The Cairo conference achieved unprecedented successes with consensus among the participants, both on the track of ceasefire by determining the mechanisms, arrangements, and requirements for its implementation on the ground, linking it to what the Jeddah platform concluded, especially on the track of addressing the humanitarian situation comprehensively from all its aspects and ways to achieve that, and establishing a committee to take the necessary measures in this regard, including the situation of Sudanese citizens in neighbouring countries.

As for the political track, a committee was formed to follow up on the dialogue between the Sudanese parties to reach a consensus on forming a transitional government of technocrats to manage the affairs of the state during this transitional period, pave the way for free and fair elections, and make arrangements to establish a permanent constitution.

The conference outputs are binding on the parties to the armed conflict and on any military or paramilitary groups, as the participants agreed on these outputs as representatives of the people embodied in the components of Sudanese society. Therefore, the armed forces must hand over power to the transitional government according to a previous promise by the head of the Sovereignty Council to hand over power to a government agreed upon by political forces and parties and to develop and modernize the military institution.

The Rapid Support Forces and other military or paramilitary components must accept integration into the armed forces or the police, or society, according to what was previously agreed upon in the conclusions of the Forces of Freedom and Change in the central council. In fact, all of the above are matters agreed upon by the components of Sudanese society, and popular consensus on them can be observed.

It is expected that Egypt's appreciated efforts, on which hopes are pinned to bring about a major breakthrough in the Sudanese crisis, will continue by resuming the work of the conference to activate the track of the political process in conjunction with the start of work on a fourth track related to paving the way for reconstruction and development. It seems that Egypt hesitated when the US administration, through its envoy to Sudan, proposed an initiative that, like other previous initiatives, addressed the tracks of ceasefire and addressing the humanitarian situation. In fact, the efforts of the US envoy stumbled on the first track for the reasons mentioned earlier but achieved a partial breakthrough on the second track with the Sudanese government's acceptance to cooperate in this step for humanitarian reasons, without participating in the Geneva platform.

It seemed to some that the US move to create a new platform, the Geneva platform, came in the wake of a US desire to bring about a breakthrough in the Sudanese crisis that would contribute to strengthening the position of the current US administration in the upcoming US elections, and regardless of that, it can be observed that the US move was keen on close coordination with Egypt within the framework of the Geneva platform based on the positive outcomes of the Cairo platform and linking it to the outcomes of the Jeddah platform.

The Egyptian political leadership witnessed high-level meetings with the US Secretary of State and the US envoy to Sudan. Recently, there have also been movements by senior Egyptian leaders towards the leadership of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council in an attempt to activate the security/military and humanitarian tracks. Efforts continue regarding the political track and the track of reconstruction and development in line with the outputs of the three platforms, which rely upon Cairo and its movements and the visions and ideas it presents, in line with the Jeddah and Geneva platforms, to overcome the Sudanese crisis and resolve it.

The writer is a former ambassador and member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.