How mutual aid in Sudan is getting international support (UPDATED) | Rethinking Humanitarianism

*This episode originally aired in October 2023, and includes new interviews recorded days before the first anniversary of the war in Sudan. Hajooj Kuka, external communications officer for the Khartoum State Emergency Response Rooms, updates host Melissa Fundira on how mutual aid groups are scrambling to avert a famine, how badly needed funding continues to be bogged down by bureaucracy, and why he believes Sudan’s emergency response rooms should inspire a change in how humanitarian aid is delivered worldwide. We also get an update from Francesco Bonanome, humanitarian affairs officer with OCHA Sudan, on the international community’s latest efforts to support mutual aid groups in Sudan.

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It has been six months since a military conflict in Sudan began claiming thousands of lives and triggered, according to the UN, the world’s fastest growing displacement crisis.

As international NGOs and the UN struggle to access certain areas, decentralised mutual aid networks – known as emergency response rooms (ERRs) – have stepped in to fill the vacuum. 

In acknowledgement of this reality,  donors, international NGOs and UN agencies are trying to shift their programmes to support these local volunteer-led networks, but deep-seated bureaucracy – standing in stark contrast to mutual aid groups’ nimbleness and agility – has meant that only a fraction of the millions of dollars promised to them have been received by ERR volunteers.

Co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira speak to two guests about unprecedented levels of collaboration between ERRs and the international humanitarian system, how they are trying to overcome the challenges, and how mutual aid groups are spurring a broader shift of power within Sudanese society.  

Guests: Hajooj Kuka, external communications officer for the Khartoum State Emergency Response Rooms;  Francesco Bonanome, humanitarian affairs officer with the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, in Sudan, focal person for the ERRs

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SHOW NOTES

• How mutual aid networks are powering Sudan's humanitarian response
• Khartoum State ERR
• Mutual aid in Sudan: the future of aid? | Humanitarian Practice Network
• From an assistance model to a community-based aid
• EXCLUSIVE: Sudanese aid workers face hundreds of job losses
• Sudan Humanitarian Fund Dashboard 2023