This article is well worth reading on the subject of how to get more women into leading roles in the Sudanese political process:
The African Union has declared 2010 the Year of Peace and Security in Africa, and will soon launch the African Decade of Women. What better opportunity to act on these pledges than at the 15th African Union Summit, being held later this month in Kampala, Uganda?
The upcoming referendum in Sudan gives African leadership an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to improving the lives of women on this continent by ensuring that they actively and freely participate in the referendum.
...
Following April's elections in Sudan, only two of 35 cabinet ministers and six of 42 ministers for state are women. There are no women at the decision-making level in the Darfur negotiations at Doha a process that is plagued by problems and proving to be ineffectual. And now there is a conspicuous lack of women in formal leadership positions for the referendum.
Indeed, of the nine people appointed by the Sudanese government to the Referendum Commission, there is only one woman. This is far from the 30 percent advocated for by Mbeki and his Panel, the 25% demanded by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and well below international standards.
Hmm. It doesn't sound that terribly far from the U.S. standards, she mutters.