Accountability to Affected People and People-Centered Response
The Accountability to Affected People (AAP) and people-centred response in Sudan ensures that communities are at the heart of decision-making and response implementation. The AAP Working Group (AAP WG) leads this effort by systematically consulting diverse groups within affected people, such as women and girls, older people, and people with disabilities, to shape the humanitarian response. Communities are engaged through two-way communication channels, including help desks, hotlines, and digital platforms, allowing for continuous feedback and adjustment of strategies. The response also emphasizes local participation, empowering local actors like NGOs and community-based organizations, to take leadership roles through the creation of community-led AAP hubs.
The AAP WG has established a common inter-agency Complaints and Feedback Mechanism (CFM) to enhance accountability and ensure that feedback informs decision-making. The group’s strategic priorities for 2024-2025 include improving coordination with stakeholders, strengthening community engagement and integrating cross-cutting issues, like gender equality, disability inclusion, and conflict awareness. Localization is a key goal, with efforts focused on building local capacity and transitioning leadership to community-based entities. By fostering transparency, trust, and accountability, the response ensures that assistance is accessible, equitable, and respectful of the rights and dignity of all affected populations.
Centrality of Protection
The centrality of protection is a critical priority in Sudan's humanitarian response due to widespread risks of violence, coercion, and deprivation from the ongoing conflict and intercommunal tensions. The 2025 HNRP will build on efforts in 2024 to address protection needs by integrating protection mainstreaming across all clusters and ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable groups such as women, children, and people with disabilities. The Protection Cluster and Inclusion Task Force will provide support to enhance the capacity of humanitarian partners to identify and assist those at heightened risk. Empowering community-led organizations, particularly women and disability groups, and ensuring equitable, non-discriminatory access to services will be central. The inter-agency complaint mechanism will ensure the affected population's voice is considered in humanitarian interventions.
Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
The HCT takes a collective, zero-tolerance approach to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), integrating Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) into all coordination mechanisms and humanitarian response. The Sudan PSEA Network, disrupted by conflict in 2023, re-invigorated its activities with the establishment of a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) to provide strategic direction. This multi-agency effort, aligned with the IASC Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Harassment (PSEAH) Vision and Strategy (2022–2026), focuses on risk mitigation, prevention, and response, emphasizing victim/survivor-centred assistance through safe, accessible reporting channels and community-based complaint mechanisms (CBCMs). PSEA efforts prioritize engaging affected populations in a culturally appropriate manner, addressing socio-cultural barriers and stigma.
To strengthen accountability, the 2024-2025 PSEA Country Action Plan includes GBV risk mitigation measures, recognizing the intersection between GBV and SEA. The response applies to a survivor-centred, gender-transformative approach, ensuring confidentiality, safety, and dignity for survivors. Monitoring mechanisms are in place, supported by a dedicated inter-agency PSEA coordinator, with field-level assessments guiding response adjustments. Additionally, community outreach campaigns using diverse communication channels will raise awareness about PSEA and reporting mechanisms. All activities are aimed at enhancing trust, increasing reporting, and improving the overall safety of affected populations, especially women and girls.
Gender, Age, Disability and Other Diversities – Sensitivity and Empowerment
The ongoing conflict in Sudan is disproportionately affecting women, girls, and other at-risk groups, such as people with disabilities, exacerbating pre-existing gender inequalities and reversing progress in gender equality and human rights gains. The humanitarian crisis, characterized by mass displacement, food insecurity, and the weaponization of sexual violence, has severe consequences for these groups. Women and girls – that make up more than half of displaced people – face significant barriers to accessing humanitarian assistance, including healthcare, clean water, and essential services. These demographic groups face heightened risks of malnutrition, GBV, life-threatening outcomes during childbirth and a lack of access to reproductive health services, further compounding their vulnerability.
Food insecurity in Sudan is not gender neutral. Women and girls are often the last to eat, and female-headed households are facing food insecurity at twice the rate of male-headed households. Water scarcity forces women and girls to travel long distances, putting them at greater risk, while menstrual hygiene needs remain severely unmet, leading to negative health outcomes. The absence of critical sexual and reproductive health services heightens risks of maternal mortality and reproductive health complications, especially for pregnant and breastfeeding women in conflict zones.
The escalation of GBV, including sexual violence, forced marriage, and human trafficking places 12.1 million women and girls at heightened risk, resulting in 400 per cent increase in the provision of GBV specialized services. Disruption in education, especially for school-aged girls, compounds the crisis, increasing the risks of child marriage, sexual exploitation, and a rollback of gender equality gains, while also limiting future economic opportunities for young women.
Despite these challenges, women-led organizations and female volunteers have played crucial roles in frontline humanitarian efforts. They lead emergency response initiatives in hard-to-reach areas, particularly food distribution and famine prevention. However, they face significant risks, including violence and marginalization in decision-making processes. To empower these vital first responders, increased, direct, flexible, and long-term funding is necessary to support their efforts and ensure they can continue to meet the urgent needs of women and girls across Sudan. The Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group (GiHA WG) supports gender integration across the humanitarian response and monitors compliance with the IASC GEEWG policy.