As the crisis in Sudan intensifies and the global funding crises deepens, the relationship between international humanitarian organisations and local responders has become both crucial and complicated.

CDAC's panel at Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week 2025 brought together international players, local organisations, and mutual aid groups to explore how information flows - or doesn't flow - between different levels of humanitarian response in Sudan. Through the lens of the ongoing crisis, panellists will examine practical challenges and emerging solutions in information, and power, sharing between "big aid" and "little aid."

Chair: Eva Khair, Sudan Transnational Consortium

Panel:

Phuong T. Nguyen, UNICEF

Dr Zaza Johnson Elsheikh, BIMA Group

Hisham Taha, Centre for Humanitarian and Development Excellence

Mukhtar Elsheikh, CDAC Network

Reem Gasim, Cash Consortium

Daniel Ayliffe, FCDO

Ammar Abumedian, Nidaa

To find out more about CDAC Network at HNPW or our work on Sudan, visit our website.

we will get going. We have some guests online as well and people filtering into the room. So that's wonderful. Hello, everyone. Welcome. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. Very last thing in the day. My name is Eva Khair. I'm a member of the CDAC team, obviously working on the local lifelines project on Sudan. Today, for anybody who's new to CDAC or communicating with disaster affected communities,

Essentially, this network is an alliance, a global one, of like-minded agencies who would, who are essentially inspecting and would like to drive the transformative change we're looking to see in the humanitarian sector. The focus is on communication as aid and putting decision-making power in the hands of communities, course, front and foremost. CDAC works with our members to see how we can collectively use our communication and information capabilities to do accountability right.

One priority for SEDAC, obviously, some years now, has been Sudan. Currently the world's largest humanitarian disaster by numbers and sheer scale. As you well know, the humanitarian response is challenging, very frustrated by access constraints and vast, vast needs. Food, famine in many hotspots and due to increase in the next couple of months, shelter, health, wash, livelihoods, you name it. Everything is needed.

And of course there are particular hallmarks of this war. Fast displacement, more than 10 million displaced, three million across borders, as well as ethnically driven tensions and of course rampant sexual violence. But amid this catastrophe that's unfolding in Sudan, Sudanese civil society and the community response has really taken center stage in relief operations, in advocacy, in diplomacy. And particularly we're seeing this

rise of grassroots volunteer-led mutual aid groups, course, such as the Nobel Prize nominated emergency response rooms, but also the national NGOs and diaspora initiatives increasing, turning to the humanitarian effort. These actors have been, they've pushed the international humanitarian system to really ask these paradigm shifting questions about, you know, what is localization? Are we doing it? We haven't been so far.

How do we do it and is war the time to innovate? And of course, we are all very acutely aware of the seismic changes in the aid funding landscape, first USAID, but also we're seeing cuts across lots of traditional donors like the UK and EU states as well. And these are all questions that our panel today will dive into and help us navigate. So with that, I'd like to turn to the panel to please introduce yourselves.

to the audience here with us and online. And if we start with you, Dr. Azaza and Dan, if you could kindly finish up at the end. Thank you.

Hello everyone, good afternoon. My name is Dr. Zahza El-Sheikh and I am the president of the Sudanese Legal Network, which is a diaspora based organisation and the diaspora members are all lawyers. Most of us are Sudanese, but not all. Thank you.

Hello, good afternoon everyone. My name is Hun Nguyen and I'm the principal advisor with UNICEF Sudan. I'm based in Nairobi and not a stranger to Sudan. I was based here for two years in the Al-A'la, South Dapur at the time, and also came on search in 2023. And my work is really to work across the humanitarian early recovery development piece continuum.

and I'm happy to be here. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Hisham.

Thank you. I'm happy also to be here. I'm Hisham Taha. I started working as a national officer in Sudan in the humanitarian world in the early 90s. I have mostly worked with the United Nations Secretariat, OCHE, DPKO and DCO in many of the crisis settings around the world, including former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Great Lakes, Iraq, Syria, twice and

Next

Thank you, Hisham. Apologies, the connection dropped in the middle there. Suffice it to say you're very experienced in the international aid mechanisms and architecture and currently heading or collaborating on a diaspora initiative. It's an important perspective bridging the two worlds. Thank you. Reem, if you could go next.

Hello everyone, my name is Rim Gassim. I am working with the Cash Consortium of Sudan, the Secretariat team, mainly supporting the local responders programming in terms of enhancing the programming of group cash transfers as well as other type of support. Happy to be here as well. Over to you, Eva.

Thank you so much, Rym. Ammar, would you like to go next and then Dan?

Hello everyone, I'm Ammar Aboumadian. I've worked for SEMIUS as a food hygiene veterinarian in the public sector before joining VetCare organization, National NGO as program manager and then joining Sudanese Development Coal Organization, NIDA, as monitoring and evaluation manager. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for having me here today. My name is Dan Aleph. I'm deputy head of the FCDO's Sudan and South Sudan unit based in London. I work exclusively on the crisis in Sudan. It's great to be here today, particularly as I started my career in Sudan about 20 years ago. So it's great to be here and to connect with you all this afternoon. Thanks.

That's brilliant, of course. And last but not least, here with me in the room, Mukhtar.

Thank you Eva. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Muqtar Atif. I used to work as a business developer in the central bank until the conflict. Now I'm volunteering with emergency response rooms in Khartoum state. I work as an external communication officer for Khartoum Bahri emergency response room.

Thank you.

Thanks very much. So the panel will be bringing different perspectives, as you've heard, and predominantly discuss the changing political and funding landscape in Sudan. And of course, the impact. That is the question we've been asking for months now, but particularly since January. And essentially, what we're trying to find out is what are the opportunities as well as the constraints for improving power sharing, information sharing, risk sharing, and looking at how we do.

shifting of practice. So in order to cover all of this with our very impressive and large panel, what we thought we'd do is to have decided questions that can explore the topic. We will go through these and once we've done that, we'll sort of open it up to you as well as those in the virtual room as well. So please do bear with us if there are communication issues, we will try and roll with it. But I wanted to first turn to Ammar.

And we're thinking about power sharing here. So we've obviously discussed that Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis by scale and scope and so on. But there is this interesting civil society landscape. The models include mutual aid groups, solidarity initiatives, diaspora that are working with locally led action. These are all operating in Sudan. So just to set the scene, do you give us a brief on civil society, the civil society landscape?

from your perspective and share how they're operating essentially in conjunction or in parallel with the IASC system.

Thank you.

long tradition of bringing our effort together to face challenging situations in solidarity, known as NAFIR.

Bye.

and

In recent history, efforts participated in many activities, political and social and even economic. And on the aspect of suddenization policies that was imposed by Bashir regime, this made some constraints on the relationship between the international NGOs and international community and local.

So.

civil society actors. And this made some sort of

and trust between these actors. In 2018, and along this changing political scene, and even during the Corona crisis, many other actors came along, especially these emergency response rooms.

Back. Back.

And even after the war, these Sufi groups are playing larger roles in supporting people taking refuge at their compounds. And this mistrust between the international and local actors are affecting the effectiveness of

a

the response to the crisis and more needed to be done along that. Thank you.

lives.

Thank you and thank you for being so brief and concise as well. And just to say to panellists, we would love to hear from as many of you as possible. let's try and stick to the two minute cap if we can. So thank you for that. Hisham, as a diaspora actor, from your perspective, how do you see the landscape?

First of all, thank you, SIDAC, for giving me this opportunity. I hope the connection is going to be better. I'm dialing in from Cairo and I hope I will have time to make a few points, actually. First of all, would like to start with Sudanese civil society has always been strong. Beginning with women's movements, Sudanese professional association and so on and now the new iteration.

of the emergency response rooms, which have taken a sizable space in the humanitarian sphere. When this war started, were three forms of solidarity initiatives that took over. One is identification of safe routes, physical evacuations, then lodging whereby Sudanese open their homes, and then sharing of basic necessities. Despite that, the feeling is that Sudanese humanitarians

are largely left out of the international humanitarian architecture. Mistrust continues and that has been traditionally the case in Sudan. And I go back to what Ammar has said in terms of this has been with us for a long time and it is as a result of the understanding of the dynamics that happen in Sudan. With experience in Sudan, you're able to differentiate much, much easier.

between who is who. But it's very clear there are five maybe more capable professional, national, and diaspora NGOs delivering quality and at scale. Many are UN and INGO partners. Some are receiving funding directly from donors. There are community-based volunteer groups such as ERRs, as I mentioned, other groups which

come together and even individuals who are assisting their neighborhoods. But one has the feeling that they are really being used to a purpose. Trust has to be improved if the way we're operating now in silos has to be avoided. The HCT, the humanitarian country team, has to have national representation, which currently it does not. In the case of Machhudna Linsani, our humanitarian effort, which is

I'm representing today. It's a diaspora group which has started working from May 2023, helping. Principally emergency response rooms throughout Sudan. We worked in Darfur, Fasher, Zamzam, other areas and we've helped in many parts of the country, but the feeling is that we remain formally outside the system.

Our contributions are not included. Our funding is not reflected. And our work is not measured against the overall expense. Many of us remain like that. Some are not. That has to be changed if the formula has to become better. Over to you.

Thank you, Hisham. The invisibility of the effort, I think, is a very key concern for diaspora actors. You mentioned several times the ERRs there. So I just want to turn to Mukhtar. Mukhtar, can you tell us a bit what are ERRs? What is their role? But more importantly, how is the decision-making process that happens on a large scale at the international level? How does that filter? How does that affect the work of the ERRs?

Thank you, Eva. Actually, the ERR is a very huge and big network of volunteers and it's a social movement. Not registered organizations. Our structure is decentralized and consists of more than 600 ERR in the country who are responsible to need. We are from the community and working for the community.

What we do exactly is giving assistance and delivering assistance in identification of the safe routes on the red areas and physical evacuation. We do it for as massive or for individuals. Also, we deliver food assistance by the brilliant idea of these communal kitchens. Also, protection spaces for children and women, operating health care centers, facilities.

Basically, essential life-saving work. All this is taking place in more than 150 locality out of 189 in the states across all of the states. We are able to reach critical areas, respond flexibly. are no one else is doing due to access challenges. Doing this at a fraction of a cost. mean, like the cheapest way is possible.

And most important, we are community members of the community, so we have a community acceptance as accountable to them. However, our actions are not visible, not formally tracked, as we do not have formally heavy system, formally heavy system, as an IM system, for example, and sharing sensitive information can put all of these volunteers at risk, which means we are not being recognized for our efforts, which means also that

are then not invited into decision-making spaces. Our knowledge tapped into a design-accountable needs-driven response. This is a real shame and waste of opportunity, of course. We are only receiving funding where actors want, without putting us in the closed rooms to take decisions.

Thank you, thank you, Mukta. So strong theme of sort of exclusion, invisibility. And I think when it comes to questions around power, that is obviously quite key to unpack. I just want to turn to Dr. Azaza. We heard from Hisham and from others as well that there's a real underutilization of expertise, and in particular diaspora expertise, from your perspective as a diaspora organization, the Sudanese Legal Network.

What are the main barriers that you're seeing in order for you to be able to participate and be part of put a decision making and of course influencing. It isn't just about the decisions, it's about the entire landscape and having a seat at the table being in the room. And if you have any recommendations on how the system can shift on how power can be shed, please do venture.

Thank you very much Eva. So I mean in terms of Sudanese legal network, just to make clear, I mentioned earlier that we're all lawyers. So many of us have, you know, some pretty influential roles in our day jobs. But then when it comes to Sudan, we have absolutely zero. So we are used to being advocates in courts all over the land.

You know, we know how to construct an argument, but today we're being listened to, whereas in this space, how we felt is that we're not being listened to, that we're not even forgotten, but ignored. So whatever we say, going to parliament, et cetera, et cetera, is largely ignored. So I wanted to just make that clear from the outset. So for me, from my perspective and our group, it's not that we don't have the skill set.

that we don't have the listeners, interested listeners. In terms of our journey that we were only formed in response to the violent conflict. So that started on the 15th of April, 23, and we were formed on the 29th of April, 23. My daughter actually was one of the co-founders. The other co-founder is not Sudanese, but a very strong ally.

In terms of what we seek to do, delivering fundraisings, we hold fundraising events because we want to ensure that our funds are constant, that we're not at the behest or mercy of any international funders. And many of you will be aware that of recent, because of the change of political leadership, that many organisations have

suddenly been jolted to now look for different funding streams. know, thankfully, Alhamdulillah, we were ahead of that. We chose to be ahead of that, not because we had the foresight, but because we know that Islamically as well, we would want to be sure that our funds are as pure as possible, that an apolitically link.

because politics changes every day. if we took politics from, if we took, funding from an organization that fell out of favor politically, then what would happen to all our beneficiaries? Lastly, in terms of inclusion, my deepest concern is the lack of inclusion of people who are disabled. So there are so many.

people, refugees who have been disabled through the conflict or prior to that, and they are just not mentioned. I haven't seen any papers, listened to any talks where people with disabilities, which is more and more significant, are being talked about.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Azaz. And I think the larger point around that is that being a diaspora actor, a Sudanese actor of any description, that you're closer to the peace, closer to the ground and hearing about needs all the time. But there is this frustration about not being able to communicate it to the complex machinery that is better funded and should be better able to react. That's the real disconnect. You mentioned funding a number of times. So just wanted to turn

to Dan from the FCDO, you've heard there are these parallel aid systems, those which are sort of, let's say Sudanese or locally led, and then the IASC international system. Essentially, this kind of could create tensions or even gaps. And in fact, it does create gaps and even inefficiencies in responding to critical needs, just as Dr. Azaza mentioned in others. So in the past month, we've seen, not past two months, we've seen some real changes to the aid landscape as we've

plenty of other mentioned before, sort of amid this changing landscape, there's now an incentive more so than ever to move into a system that's more fit for purpose. And we keep hearing this phrase over and over again. So what role do you see for donors, if any, to, you know, a role that they can play in ensuring this more inclusive response, a more collaborative sort of power dynamic minded.

response, one that does integrate not just the voice but the needs and priorities of local actors and puts them at the forefront. And in fact the question is, know, is power sharing going to shift in a way that allows us to see more local actors in decision making and in needs allocation?

Thank you. So let me first offer just a quick disclaimer. So I'm four weeks into my role on Sudan at the FCDO and I last worked in Sudan about 20 years ago. So I have a huge amount of learning to do. And just to say that none of what I say today is UK policy. So yeah, we spoke about, we've heard about kind of the shock and awe of the massive funding cuts that have been announced by traditional donors. And it seems to me that that's the biggest shock to the multilateral system since its foundation after the second world war.

you know, the implications of these changes will be far reaching. And so I'm here today kind of somewhat in listening mode. There's a question at the beginning about is war a time for innovation? I would say absolutely. You know, if we look at how modern conflicts are prosecuted, drone warfare, deep fakes, know, conflict is innovative. And I would completely agree with the premise of the question that now more than ever, we need a system that is fit for purpose. I sort of have a sort of a kind of tendency to feel that

We often focus on what the of international system is unable to do because of the constraints we face, access to NARS and insecurity. But I think also because if there is a kind of a system wide inertia, as to the question about, you know, what role can donors play, I would say I would really be confident that, you know, that we should play a role, we have, we should play a role in sort of promoting greater inclusivity, but also addressing inertia.

And I think when we do that, we should do so from a position of sort of humility and self-reflection. You know, we should ask ourselves, have past efforts to drive change worked out in practice? Who have benefited from past reform efforts? And has accountability for kind of past humanitarian resistance form been acceptable? I've sort been thinking about like the change that's needed. And there's a sort of a concept in psychotherapy about second order change.

which involves like altering the underlying rules and structures of a system, but leading to a fundamental shift in how a system functions. like moving away from just superficial, like behavioral adjustments, but like deep seated change. And I think for me, I would like donors to be part of that second order. And I think this implies a sort of adjustment in how they think, but how they operate. And I would say like giving the extent of

humanitarian needs and this massive reduction in donor financing. I would say that change now has to be bold and ambitious. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Dan. I appreciate that you sort of new into the gig and welcome back to Stan. But I really appreciate your words and to hear words like humility and inertia, I think that is very refreshing. Long may it rain and I'd love to stay on this point, but maybe we can come back to that in the questions in the plenary. But let's sort of move to sort of the information sharing aspect of the conversation. So Amart, if I can just come back to you.

As a sort of local or national NGO organization, from your perspective, having partnered with the UN, with international NGOs, donors, and of course ERRs, what are some of the barriers that you've experienced in two-way information sharing and engaging in these decision-making fora, in the sense that the two-way aspects, people have spoken to how it can be a little bit one-way, can be a bit extractive.

when local actors engage with the system. But if there's anything you can say about two-way information sharing, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you. The thing is, setup of the international system here in Sudan make it a bit slow to respond. as we know, we noticed that although we have formal meetings, the thing is, most of the decisions about managing the resources are taken

Outside this.

So.

this official meetings or formal meetings and. This makes the local representatives from Anki not part of these decisions and making many prioritization of needs not as being seen locally by the communities and even these.

Uh-huh.

bodies, NGOs bodies, UN bodies, they work this, although now they are improving this sector or cluster approach, make clusters work sometimes separately or in separate places rather than working in the same places jointly. Now we are seeing some improvement in that area, but more improvement

are needed. Also, local actors who might not have the skills of English language might not be part of some decision making or communication. more problem now facing all of us now is this remote communication. And because most of

out.

The communication now is online and or through these emails. This might be somewhat acceptable now, but.

Where possible, meeting in person is much better and it improves the relationship between actors from national and international community and it builds trust and even make more potentials known and more ideas put forward. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:17.848)

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ammar. Now, Phuong, you've been listening very patiently from UNICEF just to address the sort of localization agenda. UNICEF now has a localization strategy and has made fundamental shifts in its funding, shifting sort of from more government ministries and INGOs before the conflict to more local NGOs, latterly. Within the last two years,

You've shifted funding to local actors from 28 % to 68%. And that's commendable. Of course, funding is only one part. And funding percentage is only one indicator. So when it comes to decision making around resource allocation, which is, of course, critical, how, like we're hearing from Ammar and others, the decision making is still sitting with the UN. And that is an issue. And there is this tendency towards piecemeal consultation.

how would you say UNICEF ensures that local actors serve as sort of more genuine knowledge brokers? And of course they represent their community needs, they are the voice of that and work on a decentralized model, which may be very different to the experience of UN agencies. But of course there's this concern that UN agencies and other intermediaries sort of rely on a few, not just power brokers, also knowledge brokers who are

actually gatekeepers, in the best sense of the term, that these are people who know what's going on and can convey it in a way that the international system is ready to hear it and is comfortable hearing it. And that's crucial when there are access constraints like in Sudan. But where there are these contentions and issues with who owns information, who's conveying information, what mechanisms does UNICEF have or processes to prevent gatekeeping

in the worst sense of the word or phrase and ensure that community voices are heard across geographies, across lines.

Okay, thank you very much for that. And for UNICEF, we have established a localization strategy in the last two years now. And indeed, we have moved from 28 % of the partnership with local national NGOs to 68 % in 2024. And we will continue to go in that direction. That said, we do work with a cross sector of different partners.

whether it be local actors, ERR, mutual aid groups, national NGOs, international NGOs, and yes, including the line ministries of the government. But we do make sure that where there are comparative advantages of different partners, that's what we will tap into. And increasingly, we do find that the local actors have been a great partner to us.

Part of being a good partner is of course ensuring that local actors have full participation and constant information sharing because that's going to assist with the knowledge brokering. And we make sure that yes, there is the cluster system. I think in light of all that's happening, it does need to have a review. know, we, UNICEF has four cluster that we support. And part of that

collaboration is also through co-leadership, inclusive of national, local NGOs to be part of that discussion. So while those discussions are happening, decisions are also owned by the group and that's inclusive of national as well as international NGOs, as well as UN agencies. We also have another mechanism of feedback and that's directly from the community.

So we want to make sure that when we're providing support, whether it be through a national NGO or through ERR or mutual aid groups, we want to make sure that the communities who are receiving the support also have the opportunity to provide us direct feedback. UNICEF, our greatest asset, I have to say, are our national colleagues because they have a wide network. They have families, they have friends, they have a wide network.

and we have focal persons within the communities who provide feedback in terms of the type of humanitarian assistance that they provide. And they provide this feedback on what they like, what they don't like, what work, what doesn't work, how the aid is being provided. And so for us, that's of course very, very helpful because they directly let us know the type of support they need and how they like it.

We also have post distribution monitoring. And this is yet another opportunity for feedback directly from those communities who are being provided support, but also they have the opportunity to give us feedback on what they would like to see happen. So we listen to this feedback and as much as we can channel that those voices into how we can revise the way we program in support of the people in Sudan.

Thank you, thank you, so you know, obviously feedback is a very important component of that two way of that information sharing and certainly from one side to the other. And I like what you said about leveraging the comparative advantages of different groups, gatekeepers and so on. And I imagine that would take very sophisticated system to keep track and balance the power in that information. I just want to turn to Hisham, heard from sort of donor actor and

from an intermediary on this two-way information sharing. From your perspective, sitting where you are now with the diaspora organisation and this history of having worked with the UN system, do you have any recommendations for promoting two-way information sharing between the local and the international community?

Thank you, I'll start by making two overarching sort of points. One is that just to emphasize that the sectors, the clusters approach that has been mentioned repeatedly by the few speakers, which has been unrolled as part of the humanitarian reform agenda and so on, is time to be looked at and looked at properly with a sense of change happening. Secondly, I think Sudan.

has traditionally challenged humanitarian assistance, starting from Operation Lifeline Sudan. And I think Sudan is once more challenging the way we're doing business in the humanitarian world. And I think Sudan is going to effect changes in the way that we're going to be doing business as a humanitarian industry. And that is mostly thanks to the ERRs, which are actually revolutionizing the way that they're doing the work that they're doing. But talking about

Specifically, Sudanese have been digging deep the diaspora effort in their pockets, but that assistance that these sort of pockets are not bottomless is neither infinite or expandable. To the result, the space that the diaspora has been occupying has been reducing. People have been starting to focus more where we come from.

we ask friends, relatives, neighbors and so on for support in the work that we're doing. But people are starting to look at their immediate families, which means that there are changes which are happening. At the beginning of this war, the narrative coming from institutional donors was that we do not want money falling in the wrong hands.

We thankfully moved away from that, but we're quite far in terms of the support that has to go directly to the needs humanitarians. But at the same time, the international and humanitarian community, we look for success stories traditionally. And we found very quickly a success story in the ERRs. But as a result, we have created gatekeepers, and that is within the emergency response rooms. And that's no good thing. I think that has to...

has to change also. But information is piecemeal, is one directional. I think we're working in silos within ERRs, within the DASPORA organizations, NGOs and initiatives and the international community on the other hand. In terms of recommendations, one is that the architecture, the coordination architecture, which is rather rigid and has to be agile.

has to be adaptable to the context in Sudan. I think it should no longer be a case of one size fits all deployed from Syria to Iraq to Yemen to Sudan. I think quality leadership has to be on the ground and has to be truly enabled. Leadership must have the ability to be able to adapt, to change, to reduce and to merge structures. Those on the ground, those Sudanese operating.

on the ground have to be at the humanitarian country team. Their voices have to be heard without compromising their security. Finally, I would say that there are tens, if not hundreds, of international civil servants, Sudanese civil servants with the UN who are ready to deploy to Sudan. Many of them will come to Sudan at a blink's eye. Give them an opportunity. They will come. They will help. They will be useful. Over to you.

Thank you, Hisham. Yes, so lots of points there, not just on the two-way information, but sort of funding, and I think that the framing of how donors in the system sees information, how it can be very extractive when there are conversations. Dan, I just want to turn to you again and just unpack information. Humanitarian information obviously has its own political economy, where donors, well, donor funds are very dependent on evidence and evidencing the needs on the ground.

And obviously to do so, particularly in places where there is limited access to the system, as in Sudan, this depends on intermediaries' relationships with the local actors. So this information has a quality and a value, as well as a cost. But it is traded in the humanitarian marketplace, if we may frame it that way. So what would you say are some of the barriers that having, not just from your own experience,

and I appreciate you joined the Sudan piece very recently, but listening to colleagues on the call, what do you think some of the barriers on the donor side might be that are setting up this situation? know, whether structural or operational, has FCDO, to your knowledge, done anything to create a more enabling environment to support two-way information flow from local to international actors, as well as the other way around?

And thank you. So I think I would say there are there are definitely sort of combination of factors and I think and you know, kind of structural and operational. I think a part of the challenge, you know. So if if we as the FCDO are part of like capital city based multilateral coordination fora, does that really facilitate sufficient flows of information between like donors and those working at the grassroots? It's a question. I suppose at the same time, the UK is like.

for a long time taken a policy position of supporting coordination fora. And so we rightly or not assume that these structures are sort of a broad church and are reflective of those agencies working in the cluster. But policy and practice are different things I appreciate. And I recognize the sort of the limitations of the international system in its current design. I think really agree with the point that Hisham made, the kind of the one size fits all approach, you know, what works in.

Bangladesh doesn't necessarily work in Sudan, for example. I think in other contexts where I've worked, I have seen the FCDO forge closer, more direct relationships with local actors. A good example of that is with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society. These sorts of things take time. But I've also seen when we need to, the UK, the FCDO has been kind of quite agile. We embrace technology, geospatial tools.

social media mining to sort of bring us closer to communities or at least try and understand what people are saying online. I think this is often done in extremis, know, and physical access is constrained. But it does illustrate to me that we can innovate and in times of crisis, we can change what we do. I guess a question I can have come back to is like the role of a donor. And I think for me, this is about creating public goods.

and supporting strong enabling context. And I would say the information ecosystem is part of this. What is our role? I spoke earlier on about that kind of second order change. How do we go about bringing a much stronger, more coherent voice within the international system for those that are kind of working at the grassroots? I think we have seen kind of good practice working in extremis. But I think there's much more that needs to be done.

You know, I one thing that we've been asked in places where access has been severely constrained is how do we tell the story? You know, how do we how do we kind of give voice to people at the center of the crisis? And I think that is also something that that donors that you know that we take very seriously in doing that in a way that's not extractive and that doesn't place people in danger. But I think actually like when I think about my sort of recent experiences on context such as Tigray.

and now like Sudan where lack of access becomes normalized. I think how do we bring, how do we give voice more coherently and more strongly at the center of the response to those, the communities and B, those local groups that are leading the response I think is perhaps more important now than ever. Let me hand back to you.

Thank you, thanks Dan. Lots to say there and I think the capital city, the very centralized system is an issue and well coordination is obviously ideal, depends who again, who sits at that table, who is in those rooms. I just wanted to pick up on what you said there about the sort of extractive piece and also telling stories but being mindful of security to sort of segue to talk about risk and risk sharing. So Mukhtar if I may come to you.

You know, information has a price and when it comes to working in a conflict, one which is complex shifting stands every day, shifting allegiances and so on and so forth, there are very many risks as well as active conflict. Several people have, as well as Dan mentioned, you know, the importance of having of raising sort of that voice, the storytelling of local actors, but without compromising security. What are some of the risks that you face in ERRs, you and your colleagues?

And do you have any recommendations for those listening online to our panel and to those in the room?

Yeah, sure. I will start, I guess, with the safety of volunteers. Of course, mean, like those ERR members are working in areas that not reachable for anyone. They're working in location which is the most dangerous in the country. And as I mentioned, no actor can reach it. that because of all of these volunteers are coming from inside these communities affected.

We negotiate access through our local networks, wherever they are, and we have a strong connection to try and help as no one is. However, this is coming at risk to those volunteers. Of course, what's happening is like detention, arrested, torture, rape, misinformation, of course, being deemed as a collaborative for each of the warning parties.

And even we lost many lives, actually, more than 70 volunteers around the whole states. So yeah, I will come for safety. Despite this, we still want to help our communities. But we need to be careful when presenting the sensitive information. I guess my recommendation will go for co-designing two-way information sharing, mechanism with local actors.

less extractive and taking safety into consideration. The IAM Working Group has made a good step actually in presenting and producing the IAM Sharing protocol lately, in the last December, which indicates what the principles of information sharing are and what type of information could be shared, bending sensitivity.

However, this protocol needs further discussion, guess, because locally it's never been discussed. This is one of the things that all of the panelists were going through also. also, unfortunately, they didn't translate it to Arabic till yet, which is the main language in the country. But it's not just what information to share, but also how and how to invest in the IAM capacity of the mutual aid and ERO groups.

And we also need support, I guess, in data protection, higher level negotiation with the political faction on recognizing those group and emergency response rooms as a network so they can get protection by the international laws and to ensuring their safety.

Thank you. you're absolutely I'm really glad you raised the issue of protection because it's the kind of elephant in the room and the thing that needs to be discussed not only just from a recognition of mutual aid groups and volunteers as aid workers and making sure that they can do their work with some degree of safety, but also, you know, making sure that any information that is coming through that something is coming. There's some kind of quick pro quo, right? It's not just one way because there are very real risks, including being accused of collaborating and so on.

and it has a political value, not just a sort of humanitarian or even a financial value. Reem, just want to come to you, been listening very patiently and obviously representing the Cash Consortium, you sort of sit between so-called big aid and so-called little aid and that makes you perhaps a friend to all. But I just wonder from your perspective, you work with INGOs, local NGOs and ERRs, what risks are you seeing?

across the delivery chain.

Thank you, Eva. I mean, let me speak more specifically about the programming of group gas transfers and how we look at the delivery chain from bad donors till the end beneficiary or the direct beneficiary who are the volunteers in the community, either ERRs or community initiatives. We mainly use in the CCS. Currently, our main delivery chain is

from our side going to our NGOs partners and then directly they support local responders on the ground. We acknowledge that there is also a need to look into how we can increase the capacities of the local NGOs in order also to support volunteers on the ground for greater outcomes related to, you know, not just.

supporting the groups, but also having more solidarity among Sudanese actors on the ground, either local NGOs or even volunteers on the ground. In terms of the risk that can be seen, and it's not sharing the risk, but it's, I would say it's more of transferring risk between the intermediaries to the local responders on the ground. One of the two

The main risks are of them is safety and security as Mukhtar mentioned. The other one will be related to more like financial issues like financial loss of the value that is being transferred to the groups and the volunteers on the ground. Within the CCS we have been going into several consultations just to understand what kind of mitigation measures that we can set up.

in place and what kind of also like post incident actions that our partners can implement and can take to relieve those impacts of those incidents. When we speak about safety and security, risk is not just related to, you know, detention and maybe also like killing of volunteers on the ground. But I think this is also related on how we

are operating the support that is going to the volunteers. One of the key factors are the reporting requirements. for example, if you are asking the volunteers to register, to take photos, to take videos of their activities in areas that are very, I would say, in like active conflict or very highly insecure, it will definitely lead to, you know, increase those kinds of safety and security incidents. So I think a more dedicated guidance into how

we can jointly not just CCS Cash Consortium partners, but also all the actors of the ground, how we can look into minimizing those reporting requirements, look into existing kind of guidance and reporting requirements from the ground, from the volunteers themselves. Like for example, the emergency response from they do apply the FCSTM, which is their own kind of reporting accountability tool in place, which provide a lot of information, but in a very kind of safe and guided way.

from the ground, from the volunteers themselves. But because still as traditional, let's say, actors, NGOs, they don't really look at it as a, let's say, still like an acceptable tool. It's not, doesn't look like what we traditionally use in our reporting requirements. So I think just how we can minimize those kinds of risks is first of all, is to establish a very minimized

reporting framework that can work well for the volunteers that can ensure that their safety is put at first, not reporting to the donors. As well as also keeping in mind flexible funding is very important just to have actions or at least to reduce those kinds of financial loss that can happen because we do also

recognize some of the groups on the ground that might be subject to looting in some areas of shift, then they will lose all the assets or resources that they have accumulated, you know, get from the donors. So how we can

be able to and effectively support them to regain what they have lost and this should go through more of a multi-sectoral approach, more flexible funds that can support the groups. I think...

We pause there for now and then come back to the rest of the question. I really wanted to hear more from you because you've been listening so patiently and really key points around safety, security, as well as the financial piece, which obviously speaks to the accountability piece and therefore, you know, which could unlock the whole system if it's answered. I wanted just to turn to thinking about risk and access in terms of food and famine relief. So, Dan, if we may come to you.

In context like Sudan, obviously you have high IPC classification indicating famine in certain hotspots and more to come by May, June. And with these major access constraints that we're seeing, people on the ground are doing what they can. Some of the big players are also involved. But how do we move forward collectively to share some of the risks across the delivery chain in the way that Reem described? And what could be some of the mitigations or indeed trade-offs?

that will need to be made to ensure that assistance actually reaches places where it's needed. And of course, in a principled way and at scale. So easy question for you.

Sure, yeah, simple question. So I suppose ultimately we need a higher tolerance or a different approach to kind of understanding and assessing risk. mean, for me at least, it seems it can't be that we normalize constrained access and we do that in a way by being over reliant on a system that cannot deliver or faces huge

impediments in certain contexts. So I think, you know, that we need a kind of a wholesale kind of approach to kind of understanding risk. I would say one thing that we that we that collectively we need to do a better job of is articulating the risks about constrained access. So putting a human face on IPC5. I think the human face gets lost generally in humanitarian discussions, but and it does not really feature like with respect to

discussions about risk, I don't think. So definitely there's questions about, from a donor perspective at least, looking again at risk and compliance measures, asking ourselves, are our systems fit for purpose? I think that an issue that I come back to is like where access denials are increasingly used as a weapon of war. I think in my view, we need to kind of ask ourselves whether our current approaches to risk and compliance

and sharing that risk across the delivery chain is really fit for purpose. There's definitely trade-offs within that for sure, but I think articulating the risk of constrained access or non-access, making clear what the implications of that are has to feature. And I think within this is probably better use of technology, geospatial technology that we can use to spread some of the risk. But let me hand back to you.

Thank you, Dan. The wholesale approach to how we look at risk is probably very necessary and very timely. Just to come to Foon briefly, because I would like to open it up to the room and to the audience online, just on the political piece, we think about localisation, obviously there are these announcements, charters being signed,

parallel governments wanting to get established, territories changing hands, including quite significant pieces, just in the past week or so, how can we ensure that we support sort of local actors, know, amid all of these political changes, but support that's sustained beyond the access piece, in the sense that, you know, if an area is liberated and those in charge are willing to do business with the international system, how do we make sure that those actors

the local actors who've been there throughout on the ground aren't essentially sidelined. How do we ensure that we maintain the integrity of that work, recognise it, make sure there aren't reprisals against those who have been doing that work who don't have the international protection, and make sure that the aid gets to where it's needed fast?

Thank you. Yes, I mean, I think, you know, in the last two years, we've had some good experience with working with mutual aid groups and ERRs. And I think, you know, we do not want to see that as a means to an end, so to speak, that we will continue. We want to be able to sustain that type of partnership. And part of the way to do that is really to strengthen capacities on different levels.

in terms of sharing information, but also sharing good practices in reporting, on monitoring. And I think that there has to be tailored made capacity building of groups like ERRs so that they will have the capacities built along the way while we are going through this conflict. And I think also in terms of building capacities to be...

at that table and having conversation and co-designing a particular proposal or project design. And I think it's by doing it together, I think it's important to sustain the efforts and to build the capacities. But I think, as the earlier speaker had mentioned about the need for more flexible funding and with fewer bureaucracies, I think these are some of the areas that UNICEF is committed to working towards.

And I think we've made some progress in terms of the grand bargain. Now we're on grand bargain 2.0. And I think these efforts of the last two years to me, while it may seem a small drop in the bucket from where we were five, 10 years ago, I think we have moved a long way. But I think we still need to continue going, continuing to enhance mutual coordination, monitoring, and making sure that it is a true collaboration.

and not necessarily transferring the risk, but rather sharing the risk. And I think that's something that we still, we're not quite there yet. And I think forums like this is incredibly important for us to be here and speaking to the people who really understand what's happening on the ground.

Thank you, thank you, Phuong. think, yeah, come so far but got so far to go is probably a good way of summing it up, and even where we were two years ago, right, with the outbreak of this war. I would like to open it up to the room now. We'll come back to the panelists at the end to give your sort of final reflections and thinking, you know, around this shifting practice. And do feel free to build that into any answers that you, you you get in the room or from people online. And my colleague will assist us with the sort of online questions.

We'll just open it up to the folks in front of us in case there are any questions, clarifications, recommendations. This is a room of learned colleagues, so do feel free to venture. Quite a task for our esteemed panel, but if there are any initial thoughts coming up, comments also very well.

I don't know if we will try again with the microphone. think the question is too. The question is too.

Hi, Alan Kalma from the Lutheran World Federation. mentioned, it's for a colleague from UNICEF, you mentioned earlier that 68 % of UNICEF's funding in Sudan now goes directly to national partners. I think that's what you mentioned earlier. Just wanted some clarification on that 68%. Is it in terms of the number of total partners or is it the number of total portfolio of UNICEF in Sudan? Thank you, over.

Let's do one by one. There's another colleague. That's great. Phuong, why don't you go and then we'll come to you.

28 to 68%, that's to percent of funding to national partners. I hope that clarifies.

to nod. So the lady in the back, yeah, you just waiting for the mic from Alex and then lady in the second row and then Josh. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Siri Karen. I work for OJN Action for Africa. We are a feminist organization and we resource women's rights organization on the ground. And we have been responding to the crisis in Sudan for as long as it has existed because we are localized in Africa and we have staff and advisors just like

the colleague was saying when he was talking about ERR being localized in Sudan, understanding the context and really having the expertise to respond as online responders. So my question is around, I really appreciate the panel because it's really a diverse panel. We have people from donor perspective, UNICEF, we have the diaspora.

We have local actors as well. It's really diverse. So it was good to hear the different perspective. So my question is around, I think, in line with what my colleague asked around how we do localization on the ground. Because what we are hearing from women's rights organization is that localization has its practice now actually reinforces barriers or biases.

and is quite excluding women's rights organization. When we talk about who gets to the table, who is represented, oftentimes women's rights organization are not invited. Sometimes their contributions are not recognized because they are not then recognized as those who provide support. So I want to know, my question is to Nisef, how do you integrate?

women and marginalized groups when you are talking or when you're talking about community led actors or when you're talking about localization. How do you...

Yeah, how do you bring them to the table so that their voices are also being heard as equal partners?

Thank you. think as we've got the ball rolling, shall we take a couple more questions and then go to the panel and then come back around? think there are, yeah. Just the lady in the second row. Hi, my name is Hannah. I just actually have question for Reem. It'd be really interesting to hear just a little bit more about the cash consortium structure and how the national, international relates to so I can think about how it compares in other contexts as well.

Should we do Josh? And then we'll go around and take the next three.

Hi, I'm Josh with Proximity Humanity. I a question for the diaspora colleagues and for Mukhtar from the ERRs. I think a lot of the shifting powers, it all distills into this idea of partnership. The international system has a definition of partnership, which I think is contractual in nature. And so I know there's actually a lot of good examples of true partnership and true collaboration.

at a very grassroots level, at a very localized level. so, you know, either the colleagues online who represent national organizations or diaspora groups, or even you Mukhtar, like what is that partnership? What are the characteristics of that partnership? What has been successful in your experience over the past two years that really shifting that decision-making and that, that infrastructure from a very disembodied external function into a, I mean, in the case of the ERR is a very hyper-local, successful initiative.

Thank you. Yeah, let's open up. So a question on integrating women's rights organizations to UNICEF to read on the cash consortium structure and then really open to anyone on partnership. If we try and restrict our answers to two minutes, whoever has their hands up other than these guys, because we've got three more questions, four more questions in the room. Thank you.

So, Foon, did you want to start? Thank you.

or just on mute again.

I mean, for UNICEF, is so incredibly important to make sure that we have women's led organization and women's voices and youth voices in these meetings. And we actively, again, through our cluster and those that we're co-leading with other partners, we want to make sure that we hear from them and we actively go out to look for women led organization and youth groups. When we're out in the community,

Oftentimes when we're speaking to community leaders, we don't always find women around those discussions. And it's a challenge for us. And we actively go out to also have a side meeting where women, just a women's group so that they feel more confident to speak. Because sometimes in a larger group, their voices get drowned out because there's always some male leadership at the table.

And so for us, it is very important because when it comes to nutrition or education interventions, protection, gender-based violence, these are issues that we need women to speak out and young girls and youth groups to be able to speak to the matter. And so we actively seek for their voices. It's not always easy, I have to say, because they're not always willing to come to the fore.

in the

But we actively seek their voices because it's very important in terms of trying to design our response in areas that are incredibly, especially around protection areas.

Thank you. you for that. Reem, shall we come to you? then, panellists, feel free to put your hands up. know that Muhtar wants to come back on the partnership question.

Thank you, Ilva. So the Cash Consortium of Sudan consists of 12 national NGOs working with 8 INGOs. Our main categories of work or programming include, of course, within the umbrella of CBA or Cash and Voucher is that we mainly work to support household levels through multipurpose cash assistance as well as supporting group structure.

or community structures level like group cash transfer and supporting community initiatives. We are also expanding more into protection activities as well as market strengthening activities. I would say one of the key let's say component or aims that we are working towards is to have more of an equitable partnerships between our

20 collective kind of efforts among all the partners. So we are looking into how the governance structure can also not just include INGOs, but should also accommodate the national partners to be able to take decisions along with the INGOs, as well as being involved in all the technical working groups that are deciding how the programming should be developed.

I can also put my email if you want more information about that. Over to you Igo.

Thank you so much, Reem. Dr. Azaza, shall we come to you? I presume it's going to be about partnerships and then we'll come to Mukhtar. Other panelists, feel free to raise your hands.

Yes, regarding partnerships. So we are in partnership with a Sudanese women refugee led organization in Egypt. So it's a registered charity in Egypt called Tafarul. And so they do have funding from big funding organizations. And regarding how that works and all the challenges that we've spoken about already.

with the recent change in that we have been able to bolster them with our funding because it's not based on NGOs and also just wanting to touch on the couple of issues that we talked about before, information sharing and risk because I didn't have the opportunity there.

was that one of the risks that we face is being overwhelmed by the beneficiaries of this charity that we partner with because when the word gets out that there is some assistance in the shape of food packs, clothing, medication and also shelter, a very limited amount of shelter, we are then swamped and so this is one of the risks.

that our volunteers face and staff face as well in that they have been physically assaulted to be able because they're the ones who stand between the aid, the assistance and the people. So I wanted to highlight to that, that that's one of the areas that is still a huge gap for us. And then in terms of the actual information sharing that we have more than a thousand women who have been subjected to

and conflict related sexual violence that we have helped them with having their babies because we had a significant issue of infanticide. So we've been able to celebrate to the birth of those babies and supporting the mothers. I'll stop there so I don't take up too much time.

and

Thank you so much, Victoria. Those are really sobering words. And I think, you if we talk about the invisibility of not just the effort, but where it's happening, because sometimes there's a focus on what's happening in Sudan, we can speak to that, but there isn't the focus on what's happening in the localization agenda in terms of beyond those borders. And that's a real opaque area. Muhtar, did you want to?

Thank you. Regarding the partnership, guess, in the last two years, we had a lot of discussion with our partners, like the UN agencies, international actors who are working in Sudan. And we've been through a lot of challenges. First of all, definitely, I can say they're laying on specific individuals on behalf of the whole communities working on the ground.

And this is one of the barriers between the international actors and the ERRs because this could play a big role in like putting, I mean like a gap between the communities and the actors in information sharing. Also, it's not supporting the decentralization of engagement and

Thank

Also, I guess we will be glad if we had this partnership in designing the solution coming on the ground because we cannot just put something without at least do the consultation or pre-consultation with the communities. And we're having this also with a lot of actors right now in Sudan. Direct funding, guess, predictable, flexible, timely funding time. This is something needed from

both international actors and the intermediaries are also on the...

Thank you so much, Mukhtar. I see we have Ammar's hand up. I just wanted to touch quickly on a question in the chat just about collating information so that it's available somewhat centrally and also using the changes in the funding landscape to address the origins of the system, to take a decolonial approach, to center local voices, just in case.

Panelists haven't seen that. Okay, the hand has gone down. We do have a few questions in the room. I'd like to take those because the audience have been listening very patiently and then open it up to the panel again and then we'll do sort of summation and closing. So, there were, yes, the gentleman right at the back, this lady, this lady and this gentleman in the blazer.

And Hisham, welcome to first.

Thank you very much. My name is Pam Steele. work with Sudanese National Medical Supplies Fund, supporting them with their health supply chain strategy. And I should say that Sudanese are a resilient people, country that suffered 26 years of sanctions and did some great work without the donor support. And now that we have the donors, I think for me the concern is how does

the aid delivery because of the humanitarian response be done in a sustainable way by using, know, doing more with less, especially in this time of funding constraints. And then with localization, great to see that UNICEF has a strategy on localization. did a good year study on localization for USID. It will be interesting to compare notes. But one thing that I think want to

emphasises the need to make sure that, you know, that accountability is not a one-way thing, which tends to be especially when it is an aspect of localisation. But also that, yes, you have the feedback mechanism from the beneficiaries, but I think it would also help to make sure that the needs originate from the beneficiaries themselves for you to have that closed-loop approach. Thank you.

Thank you so much. My name is Carol Weroonga. I work with Agent Action Fund Africa as well. My question was going to be directed to Dan, but I noticed that he dropped off. They dropped off, but that is fine. So I will just go ahead with that question because you are here. Sorry. OK, alright, OK, maybe the video went off and yeah, that's fine. alright, thank you so much Dan.

So my question was about funding and this aspect of localization. And I was very encouraged when Dan, you spoke about the issue of that, because of the context right now when it comes to funding is we need to rethink or shift in the way that we work. And that includes investing in change that is ambitious and also strategic.

And that really begins to look at addressing the root causes of crisis or conflict. And if we are looking at addressing the root causes, this is long term. We need to invest in that. So my question is, especially for funders and also those who provide financial support to groups in Sudan, are we ready when it comes to issues to do with risk?

and trust because I see we are talking about localization. We are talking about feedback mechanism. We are talking about community led, but if we were to be, you know, to ask ourselves the question when it comes to that measure meter, where is our risk appetite? Because if we are to invest in really addressing the root causes, our risk appetite must go up. But we know very well, especially with bilateral and

the risk appetite is very low. So how are we addressing the issue of risk appetite when it comes to truly supporting the initiatives in Sudan that will address the root causes as opposed to responding to the symptoms of the crisis? So that and also the trust. Someone mentioned about really investing in the safety and the wellbeing of those who do the work.

Thank you.

Most of the time we are really focusing on the projects. That we want these projects to be done and we want ABCD. But we rarely invest in the people who are at the front line actually doing the work. that... Sorry, sorry. All right. So really looking at the trust and investing in that trust and being true to what we are saying. Because I feel like we are speaking, but are we really ready to invest in that risk and also the trust? Thank you.

Sorry?

Thank you. think building on that, idea is funding development and conflict stabilization and peace building programs, not just responding to crises through the humanitarian funding, which is being prioritized writ large. Thank you. I think the gentleman at the back is in the gray and this gentleman in the red as well. And we have about eight minutes before we close. If you could try and do a minute each, I would be very grateful.

Hi, my name is Guido. I'm representing here both the Next Humanitarians Network, which is working to get students and young humanitarians involved in the sector, but also with help logistics and we're working on supply chain localization globally. And my question, I saw some of it come up in the chat, but every day I get news and we all get news about local international organizations letting people go, data being scrubbed from websites, those being internally and preemptively censored.

we see organizations accepting less risk in taking less risk requiring more reporting more evidence making sure there's a strong relationship at a time when international aid when funding is being increasingly politicized is put increasingly polarized is an increasingly in very problematic relationship with hard and soft power as we see individual agenda is being pushed internationally how realistic do you see that development of this advocacy

or less stringent reporting, for more flexible funding, or for shared risk partnerships. Do you see it developing significantly in next one, three, five years, or is the global political situation completely destroying that foundation?

Thank you. Has the temperature changed too far? Yeah, thank you. Just a gentleman back. And then I think we'll come to the panel because we have the short time left. We can just go through one by one and feel free to answer to any of these questions before you. They are rather larger philosophical questions about the system, which is absolutely right. It's where we should be. This is the week to have that conversation, if not every week. And also offer any final thoughts if you can. Yes.

This is an amazing discussion on Sudan and it looks like a lot of volatile, harmful place where to work. So few things, observations on risk mitigation. So basically I look at the point of core humanitarian standards. So there is a commitment four which says about do no harm and

How effectively place this even in midst of local lifetime localization for process, how we effectively do no harm is placed in. So that's very important commitment number four. And most of our discussion is on commitment number six and coordination, collaborations, localizations. But I don't know the name.

You said that you have lost some of your volunteers. One of the reasons is if we had taken these core humanitarian standards very seriously to protect the staff, which is commitment number eight. So these some of the things is already in place as a tools and guidance. I think it's very important that how do we mitigate those things to reduce the risk and go forward.

So.

for the effective work. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think we have four minutes left and we have seven panelists. So I think it's probably about a minute to 90 seconds, lightning round. Please respond to any of the questions before you and offer an estimation in a very short period. I think there weren't any particular questions. no, Dan on the accountability question. Would you like to start and then we'll go through the screen.

Yeah, I'll be really quick. So there's a question about kind of addressing root causes. I think, yes, like the UK is dead set on addressing some of the root causes. Foreign Secretary has convened a meeting in London on the 15th of April for his peers to look at the crisis in Sudan. So I think there is a will there. Yeah, I would say.

The nature of crises today in Sudan is a brilliant example of this. The system has to change because it's clear that it cannot continue to attempt to deliver. The system is being essentially blocked out, so there has to be change. I think now is the time to be innovative. We spoke at the beginning about this conflict, a good time to innovate. would say absolutely yes, because we can't afford not to, ultimately. Sorry, that was more than a minute. I'll hand back.

Thank

Thank you, So we do you want to go next?

Great, thanks very much. Yes, I mean, the question about risk appetite in the current climate, sometimes I think we have to have a no regret approach. And I think we need to put more efforts there, including heightening our risk appetite, because there are lives at stake. And I think we need to have that in order to save the lives of children, of women, of men, of communities.

We

I don't think we have the luxury to do business as usual. And I think we have to really get out of that landscape and do business as unusual because again, lives are at stake. And I think we need to have a greater discussion about risk appetite, including increasing it and having a no regrets approach to our humanitarian response.

Thank you. Business as unusual. I really like that. Dr. Zazer, shall we come to you next?

Yes, yes, so I really applaud Feng's comments about having a no regret approach. Mothers are having to decide whether to feed their disabled child or their able child because of the lack of potential survival contribution from a disabled child. So I would really like funders to think about that. These are live cases.

These are the most vulnerable men, women and children. And as you can tell, particularly children who are disabled have less rights than even adults with disabilities.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks very much for your reflections, Azza. Reem, do you want to come in?

Yes, thank you Eva. There was I think a question related to how we can do more with less. And I want to go back to this point specifically when supporting local responders on the ground. We know that the overall impact that they are having with having really less, you know, in terms of funding, not just financial support, but also in terms of capacity strengthening.

programs or any kind of advocacy efforts on the ground. So I think investing in supporting local responders would really have higher impact. For example, like from the statistics from the ERRs, they would say that five USD is actually the cost per beneficiary for maybe a duration of one. So it's like very minimum amount where you can see

comparing to the traditional humanitarian actors, they would need more than five USD, maybe 100 USD to support one family or even more. So I would say investing in the capacities of the local responders on the volunteers to be able to achieve more and to continue their locally led efforts in really special hard to reach areas. In terms of, I think,

discussed with back donors to be able to establish this kind of harmonized approach. So I would say looking back, the situation now is maybe going better and then we can see a bit of flexibility from more like institutional donors as well, but there's still a lot to do. Over to you, Ima.

Thank you, Reem. You're a font of information. So please do indicate if you would like to be put in touch with any of the panellists and we will sort of arrange it and get clearance on that. Ammar and then Hisham and then I'll hand over to Mukhtar to sum up. Again, we are over time. So a minute if you can.

From experience, a lot can be done when people in different institutions come closer together and relying only on the formal communication is not enough. And we know also that many of international organizations resort to their informal and personal communication and connections in order to carry out duties

their duties, especially that they are foreigners in some countries. But which is good thing, but we need to that informal to be inclusive, informal communication and informal discussion to be inclusive to local actors as well and even the main donors as well. Thank you.

Thank you,

I think everybody just a few words. One is that risk appetite was mentioned and I think UN leadership in Sudan and I NGO leadership as well can learn lessons from other emergencies whereby risk was managed in a quite impressive way, reaching populations in areas which were highly unreachable for many, many months. Also, there was a discussion around partnerships.

And that, in a nutshell, we find that partnerships with Sudanese organizations are much easier to form than with international organizations. And that also links to what I was saying earlier on, which is partnerships are one way to reduce the silos that we're working in. What we need to do is that we need to be doing what we're doing now much better.

before thinking of what more can be done. Over to you.

Thank you so much. did fantastically to keep time. So Mukhtar, I'll give you the last word and then I'll try to summarize in 30 seconds.

Thank you Eva. Actually I guess basically international actors need to dive in ready to truly act with mutual trust, respect, transparency and flexibility to ensure fair share for efforts and resources. International actors also should reduce not to add to the obstacles that the local actors NGOs and my colleagues in ERRs

are already facing and overcoming as a frontline responders. Over to you.

You're all doing so well. think it's impossible to sum that up well, because I think there was so much covered. And I think the questions, especially at the end there, were really key and we need to leave this room thinking about that and battling that as we go on. But when it comes to trying to address how we share power, information, risk and shifting practice, we've had some very encouraging signs, I think.

from our panel about humility, inclusion, improving and increasing that risk appetite, always pushing that ceiling, busting the inertia. Colleagues online were also talking about shaking the system awake, decolonization, innovation in a time of war, and we all feel at war in some way or other, not just the Sudanese, and the business unusual and redefining and asking the question as the audience did on what is partnership? Ask the partner, the potential partner, what is partnership?

to you and collaborate and most importantly coordinate that so that it is tied into systems and to capital. Thank you so, much for your time this afternoon. And I'm very sorry we're six minutes over, but I felt like it needed the time. And thank you to the panel who did a tremendous, tremendous effort being here in spirit online and very much intellectually in the room. So thank you and thank you to Muhtar and thank you to your colleagues and the work that you're doing. And good evening.

Thank you very much.