What Sudanese Crisis Response Leaders Want the International Humanitarian System to Know

Sudanese crisis response leaders are calling on the international humanitarian system to fundamentally rethink how it funds, partners with, and protects local responders. This policy brief draws on insights from 20 local leaders providing crisis response through Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), civil society organisations, and women’s associations across Sudan — representing diverse regions including Darfur, Greater Khartoum and Gezira, eastern states such as Kassala and Al-Qadarif, and the Kordofan and Nuba Mountains.

“In the end, we are all human, facing the same violations, and we deserve equal attention.” — Female ERR volunteer, 25

Findings are based on semi-structured interviews conducted by CHL in Arabic between December 2024 and December 2025, with transcripts translated into English for analysis. Sudan is facing one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world, yet it remains significantly underfunded and underrepresented in global media. The humanitarian response has been largely sustained by diaspora communities and mutual aid structures — including through nafeer, a traditional Sudanese practice of collective solidarity in times of crisis — with volunteers delivering assistance at great personal risk and without formal protections.

This brief responds directly to participants’ requests to amplify their voices and influence international humanitarian policy and practice. It is directed at international donors and humanitarian decision-makers, and its recommendations call for flexible and direct funding, formal recognition and protection of community volunteers, and needs-based — rather than geopolitically driven — humanitarian financing. These findings connect directly to CHL’s broader research on locally led crisis response and the work of the Crisis Leadership Program.

This research was funded in part by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Humanitarian funding data referenced in this brief is drawn from the Global Humanitarian Overview 2026.

These recommendations reflect commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit and embedded in reform frameworks including the Grand Bargain and the Good Humanitarian Donorship Initiative. That these challenges persist is not a failure of evidence or agreed principles — it is a structural problem: donor accountability frameworks have not kept pace with genuine power sharing with local actors.