Humanitarian Diplomacy in the Sudan Crisis: Insights from Outside the Formal Humanitarian Architecture

Roundtable report

This note summarises the findings of a closed roundtable discussion convened on 12 August 2024 by NatCen International, the global arm of the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), Shabaka, and the Centre on Armed Groups ahead of this year’s World Humanitarian Day. This online closed roundtable, held under Chatham House rules, explored the role of humanitarian diplomacy in the Sudan crisis, with a focus on bringing insights from outside the humanitarian system in Sudan, as well as other crises such as Myanmar, Syria, and Yemen.

The event was chaired by Sherine El Taraboulsi–McCarthy, Director of NatCen International, Elvina Quaison, Interim CEO of Shabaka, and Ashley Jackson, Co-Executive Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. Expert speakers included Ibrahim Jalal, non-resident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre; Kholood Khair, Founding Director of Confluence Advisory; Dr Hazem Rihawi, Senior Advocacy Officer at the White Helmets; and Aung Zaw Win, Operations Manager for Green Life Alliance for Development (GLAD).

Participants in the closed roundtable included humanitarian researchers, practitioners, and policymakers based in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the US, as well as civil society representatives and diaspora humanitarians from Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The roundtable discussion included expert speaker presentations on examples of humanitarian diplomacy’s successes and failures from Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The following questions were used to frame the discussion:

• What opportunities are there for local and diaspora responders who are outside the formal humanitarian architecture to support humanitarian diplomacy in Sudan?
• What successes and challenges can we learn from humanitarian diplomacy in other crisis contexts, such as Myanmar, Syria, and Yemen?
• How can humanitarian stakeholders work with non-formal humanitarian actors more effectively in crisis contexts such as Sudan?

Key messages

Key messages from the session include the following:

• Worsening humanitarian situation in Sudan: The fighting that broke out in Sudan on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has directly led to millions of people being displaced and exacerbated the pre-existing challenges in Sudan. As of 29 July 2024, approximately 10.7 million people have been displaced inside the country due to the conflict, with a further 2.1 million crossing into neighbouring countries, including Sudanese refugees, refugee returnees, and third-country nationals (OCHA, 2024).
• Ongoing lack of humanitarian access and famine warnings: The conflict continues to hinder humanitarian access to the country. It has caused significant disruption to the country’s infrastructure and economy, particularly the agricultural sector, leading to approximately 18 million people facing acute food insecurity, including famine in some areas (FAO, 2024). On 1 August 2024, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) concluded that famine conditions are prevalent in parts of North Darfur, including the Zamzam camp south of El Fasher (IPC, 2024). Additionally, this dire situation poses specific challenges to neighbouring states in the region, as most countries receiving those fleeing Sudan already have large populations of displaced people and humanitarian assistance remains underfunded.
• Inefficient response and bureaucratic barriers: The discussion highlighted a lack of timely and efficient response mechanisms, with bureaucratic and political impediments hindering humanitarian responses, such as acknowledgement of famine in areas not under RSF control, and severe flooding in North Sudan. Recurring themes included the fragmented response and a lack of coordination among various UN agencies, INGOs, and local actors in Sudan, and a failure to learn lessons from other crises, such as Myanmar, Syria, and Yemen.
• Improved coordination between all actors, including local mutual aid groups and their diaspora partners, is crucial to avoid duplication of efforts and inefficiencies in aid delivery in crisis contexts such as Sudan. Participants called for more coordinated and effective humanitarian diplomacy from the bottom up that involves all stakeholders and amplifies the voices of local responders.
• Political interference and weaponisation of aid: Aid and humanitarian activities are often politicised, with the warring parties leveraging aid to advance their interests and political agendas. In Sudan, as in other crisis contexts, aid and denial of access to aid are used as levers to exert control.
• Localisation, engagement and trust issues: The push for localisation is hampered by a lack of trust between traditional humanitarian actors and mutual aid groups. This is compounded by donors' administrative processes and approaches to risk management. There is also an urgent need for long-term, sustained interaction with local responders, mutual aid groups and diaspora to enable their ongoing engagement with institutional humanitarian partners (such as UN agencies) and Sudan’s international partners (such as the UK, which is current ‘pen holder’ on the Sudan crisis at the UN Security Council (UNSC).
  
  However, this is complicated by institutional mandates, which can limit engagement with local responders, mutual aid groups, and diaspora humanitarians within formal humanitarian frameworks. In the case of Sudan, there are no media interviews, clear statements, or white notes from the UN regarding the situation in the country.
• Structural issues among UN agencies and donors: The UN and donor states often lack the structural efficiency and capacity to prioritise needs and to provide an adequate response to crises, in Sudan and elsewhere. Their processes and procedures are often cumbersome and extractive, and there is also a need for better accountability processes and transparency. Representatives of Sudanese civil society highlighted that they had been involved in several mapping exercises for humanitarian agencies, but there was little follow-up from these. There is also a discrepancy in the attention and resources allocated to different crises, such as Gaza and Ukraine, with Sudan being overlooked despite evident needs.
• Role of Media: The role of media and public perception is crucial in bringing attention to crises and mobilising resources. Media attention can also be used to challenge an absolutist approach to sovereignty by states or conflict parties.

Lessons learnt from other crisis contexts: Myanmar, Syria and Yemen

• Past humanitarian diplomacy efforts in other crisis contexts highlighted the fragmented response and the need for better coordination among UN bodies, INGOs, and local civil society groups in a multi-faceted protracted crisis. Several participants expressed disappointment that the same lessons learned from crises in Myanmar, Syria and Yemen were not being applied in the Sudan crisis.
• In Yemen, the Houthi regime controls significant parts of the country, making access to these areas difficult for humanitarian actors. Security concerns, including ongoing conflict and the potential for violence, and targeting and detention of local responders, complicate efforts to deliver aid and engage in advocacy efforts. The involvement of external actors in the Yemen conflict, including regional powers and international organisations, adds another layer of complexity to humanitarian diplomacy efforts.
• In Myanmar, navigating multiple government and administration structures can be challenging, and requires meaningful participation of local responders and ensuring their involvement in decision-making. At the same time, the critical role of building alliances with local communities was highlighted in enabling access, delivery of relief supplies, and providing support for people displaced by the crisis.
• In Syria, institutional stasis at the UN level and the geopolitics of the UNSC are a recurrent challenge for local responders and diaspora humanitarians. The state-centric structures of UN agencies and also the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has proved a barrier to more effective working with local responders, but at the same time it is important to note that Syrian local responders based in Gaziantep developed close working practices with some UN agencies and ICRC for cross-border and crossline aid deliveries, especially after the devasting earthquakes that affected Syria and Türkiye in February 2023.

What are the priorities for humanitarian diplomacy in the Sudan crisis?

• Sudan is now one of the worst crises in the world for humanitarian access. There are several factors that continue to hinder relief effort, including the lack of humanitarian corridors, attacks on humanitarian convoys as well as attacks on and displacement of humanitarian workers. Additionally, the distance between Port Sudan and the most impacted areas of the country has added another barrier to humanitarian access; the distance from Port Sudan to El Geneina, a conflict-affected town in Darfur, is around 1,700 kilometres which is similar to the distance from London to Warsaw. Participants called for urgent action to unblock those barriers and facilitate humanitarian access to the affected populations.
• Regional impacts of the crisis include over 2.2m displaced Sudanese people fleeing into neighbouring countries and further displacement of refugees and third country nationals in Sudan, adding pressure on already struggling economies – Egypt for example is already facing a serious economic crisis. There are security concerns as well around the possibility of hostilities spilling over into neighbouring countries, and for the conflict to feed into already existing regional rivalries.
• Responses from neighbouring countries include moving displaced Sudanese and other affected nationals at borders to various in-country locations, such as refugee camps, or to their countries of origin. This also includes some third country nationals returning to origin or other countries in the Horn of Africa. Neighbouring countries have also worked to provide access to necessities such as food and water to affected people at the borders or in refugee camps, but these efforts are hindered due to security issues, poor infrastructure, and climate events.
• A key challenge to the humanitarian response is protection for civilians, humanitarian workers and civil society organizations. There have been several incidents where they have been targeted by warring parties. Sexual gender-based violence (SGBV) is also increasing and is being used as a weapon of war.
• Lack of funding from donor countries is impacting relief efforts. Humanitarian needs are rising faster than funds are being committed or sent, making it harder for humanitarian services to be provided. Reasons for low donor funding include several concurrent crises happening globally which are stretching donor funds, economic crises in donor countries, and cuts to aid budgets in donor countries. Research has also pointed out that foreign policy priorities impact humanitarian
  donorship and, therefore, there is a need to continue advocacy efforts to support the Sudan response.
• Lack of adequate support for local civil society: Due to a lack of humanitarian access, local responders, mutual aid groups, and local civil society networks – including such as Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) – have been critical in delivery of humanitarian services in many parts of Sudan, providing shelter, food, and water to displaced people. Yet these are not easily included in formal humanitarian frameworks. These local groups are often managed by volunteers and rely on financial support through donations provided by local actors and the Sudanese diaspora. Diaspora support is also regional, as many Sudanese diaspora are sending funds to displaced relatives in Egypt, Chad, and other neighbouring countries.
• Sovereignty and state-centric approaches: Several participants highlighted that the emphasis on state sovereignty often takes precedence over humanitarian needs, complicating efforts to address crises effectively. Moreover, there were differing understandings of what constitutes ‘humanitarian diplomacy’; for some institutional humanitarian partners, the emphasis is often on quiet diplomacy with conflict and political actors in crisis contexts, whilst for others (especially INGOs), this was seen as more a case of ‘protection advocacy’. Participants acknowledged the tension between these different conceptualisations but also argued that both approaches tended to be top-down, and these need to be complemented by bottom-up approaches that work with affected communities and local civil society organisations and networks.
• Role of regional and continental organisations: It is important to see how organisations like the African Union (AU) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have responded to the Sudan crisis. The AU announced Roadmap for the Resolution of the Conflict in Sudan. The AU and IGAD need to be more visible to local organisations to help increase the level of trust between them and local actors. This can be done by providing local actors with clear pathways for advocacy with the AU, IGAD, and other regional bodies. In order to ensure improved protection for civilians and humanitarian workers and to create humanitarian corridors, hostilities need to end. Regional bodies such as the AU and IGAD are working to bring the warring factions together so they can agree a negotiated cessation of hostilities; however, there was a pattern of not both conflict parties failing to honour such agreements in the past.
• Strengthening crisis response and planning for peacebuilding and reconstruction: drawing on experiences from other crises, several participants highlighted the need for a holistic, rather than piecemeal, approach to humanitarian response that is cross-sectoral and builds in community- and local civil society-led approaches to peacebuilding and future reconstruction. Humanitarian diplomacy on these issues from the bottom up should be used to complement more top-down, institutional approaches pursued by UN agencies and governments.

Conclusion and next steps

The session chairs thanked participants for their time and invaluable contributions. Sherine El Taraboulsi McCarthy stressed that the discussion also highlighted the need for further research in this area to help build the evidence base on different approaches to humanitarian diplomacy. She explained that NatCen, Shabaka, and the Centre on Armed Groups will agree on the most useful type of publication to capture very rich discussion and key points from the session.

For Shabaka, Elvina Quaison stressed the need to recognise the vital contributions of local mutual aid groups and diaspora humanitarians to crisis response in Sudan and other contexts, and to ensure that the perspectives and experiences of local civil society and affected communities are included in humanitarian, peacebuilding, and reconstruction initiatives now, not after the fact.