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After two years of war, Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with over 12 million people displaced.
Two years into the war, Sudan remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 25 million people struggling to get enough to eat and over 12 million displaced. Nearly everyone has a tale of horror to tell, whether suffered themselves or experienced by a family member or friend.
But horror is not in short supply around the world, and the response of the humanitarian community to a growing number of crises is severely hampered by the bleakest funding situation since the Second World War. Globally, the UN has appealed for US$45 billion to support humanitarian needs of 185 million people in 2025. It has received only 5 percent of this.
In Sudan, this threatens lives as food supplies dwindle and health facilities shut. Perhaps last week you could feed your children in an emergency kitchen set up to provide basic meals, but this week the gates are locked. If your local clinic is still open (around 75 percent of health facilities have shut), there are fewer medicines on the shelf for preventable but deadly diseases like tuberculosis and diarrhoea.
We must find ways to minimize this suffering and make funding go further. This includes by supporting the Sudanese to help themselves, moving beyond humanitarian aid and by using donor money to kickstart engagement with the private sector.
It’s what civil society and business leaders called for in my meetings with them in Sudan, which echoed my same thoughts when war came to my own country, Syria, some 15 years ago. We didn’t want handouts then. Like the Sudanese – like everyone – we wanted to maintain our ability to support ourselves, as the best preparation for the “day after”.
With humanitarian appeals underfunded, UNDP finds ways to make funding go further and minimize suffering.
The military situation on the ground is fluid, but in many areas, security has improved, and people are moving home, crammed into small busses or carrying their possessions across hundreds of kilometres of ruined countryside.
Leading the way back home in many instances are the women, who in Sudan like most other conflicts had borne the major brunt of war. And often unnoticed, have been the critical glue that kept families and household together through the hardship.
In every case, the return journey is one of anxiety as well as hope. What’s left of my house and my farm? Has my shop been looted? Have my tools been stolen? For many, the joy of seeing a familiar horizon and childhood landmarks is tempered by the reality of empty shelves and the difficulty of starting again with no tools or seeds or stock.
Enabling farmers to do just that can be as simple as providing basic tools, drought-resistant seeds and cost-effective solutions like solar-powered water pumps that can open up new land and operate even where power has been cut off.
UNDP has tried this approach in Kessala, Gedaref and River Nile governorates, where we helped farmers boost yields and set up kitchen gardens on unused land. This helped feed families, increased the food supply and boosted the local economy. Profits were then re-invested to expand production, making it possible for us to move on to support other communities.
"We all hope for a rapid and lasting peace in Sudan – and the number of people returning home is a vote of confidence in the country’s future by the country’s people."
Another approach is to leverage funds for greater impact by bringing in the private sector. I saw this during my time in Afghanistan, where UNDP used $2 million of funding to make possible $20 million of loans for small businesses. With these loans, farmers and entrepreneurs were able to expand operations. Increased profits allowed them to repay the loans and reduced the need for outside support.
In Sudan, we have just piloted a similar scheme to make $5 million of loans available for people who would normally be cut off from financial services. As their businesses grow, so will the ability of communities to buy food, medicine and other essentials.
These two approaches call for a change in mindset so that sustainable development can go hand-in-hand with emergency aid.
We all hope for a rapid and lasting peace in Sudan – and the number of people returning home is a vote of confidence in the country’s future by the country’s people. But even if peace were declared today, there would still be a long road ahead to repair the damage of war.
It is vital that we support families and communities to withstand current shocks, so they are ready to make the most of peace whenever it comes.
This article was originally published in Asharq Al-Awsat.
