2025 has proven a pivotal year for the global humanitarian system, with the convergence of drastic funding cuts, growing attacks on humanitarian action and halted progress on a number of collective commitments. These trends profoundly affected aid operations around the world, forcing humanitarian actors to significantly scale back programming and rethink their operating modalities. These trends also triggered the launch of the Humanitarian Reset, an ambitious global reform agenda by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee aimed at reshaping humanitarian action for these stark new realities.
In Sudan, the HCT embarked on a series of measures to implement the Humanitarian Reset, with a focus on delivering a more effective and prioritized response that is both locally led and community driven. This includes a rigorous geographic prioritization exercise undertaken in September, which identified 17 localities in the Darfur and Kordofan regions as well as in Khartoum and Aj Jazirah, where aid organizations are scaling up the inter-sectoral integrated response. An Operational HCT was formed in 2025 to coordinate response in these priority areas and to regularly review their continued relevance and alignment vis-à-vis changes on the ground.
Concerted and collective action was also taken in another two critical areas for the Humanitarian Reset:
Accountability to affected people
Significant progress was made in 2025 to strengthen AAP systems and ensure that the voices of affected communities—in all their diversity—are at the center of the humanitarian response and effectively inform and guide humanitarian interventions. Focus has also been placed on strengthening two-way communication, so that affected people are better informed about the humanitarian response and decisions that affect their lives.
In 2025, further work was undertaken to strengthen the Inter-Agency Community Feedback Mechanism (CFM). Using different, customized channels, the CFM enables communities to report feedback, concerns or dissatisfaction with services, supported by clear referral and escalation pathways, while also providing them with up-to-date humanitarian information and key messages. In addition to various digital channels, the CFM has a network of more than 150 AAP community champions who provide a direct interface for affected people to convey their needs and priorities, while also facilitating two-way communication and fostering community engagement and trust. This network includes almost 20 champions with disabilities, which has significantly enhanced the inclusion of people with disabilities in accountability mechanisms. In 2025, the Inter-Agency CFM received more than 230,000 feedback cases, almost 90 per cent of which had been closed. More than 570 community reports were also submitted, reflecting the needs and challenges of more than 3 million people.
“This consultation gives us a voice. We are no longer silent.”
Deaf community member who participated in the HNRP community consultations, Gedaref
It is clear however that more work lies ahead; needs assessments indicate that more than half of households in Sudan say that the assistance they receive does not meet their priority needs. As part of the community consultations, 57 per cent of respondents noted that they do not know or are unsure how to submit questions and feedback to aid agencies. They also underscored the need to increase communication and awareness of humanitarian updates and safeguard responsive actions to evolving community needs and priorities. As the humanitarian community strives to deliver a more accountable and inclusive response, AAP will remain a central priority in 2026, requiring continued support and adequate resourcing.
Northern, Sudan
A humanitarian worker speaks with an internally displaced woman in her shelter in Ad Dabbah.
UNFPALocalization
Sudanese organizations—including local responders, mutual aid groups (MAGs), national NGOs (NNGOs) and others—form a central part of the humanitarian response in Sudan, though they continue to face unequal partnerships, difficulties in accessing funding and support, and increasing safety risks.
In an effort to advance localization, the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF) allocated $25 million in 2025 to support MAGs across Sudan. With these funds, MAGs have sustained hundreds of community kitchens across the country, facilitated the evacuation of civilians and provided access to essential services in some of the most hard-to-reach areas. By the end of the year, the SHF had supported more than 1,000 MAGs, over one-third of which were WLOs. Given that MAGs are based in communities—and their membership are most often comprised of affected people themselves—this support also represents a direct investment in AAP and ensuring bottom-up, community-driven programming.
Efforts were also made to strengthen the engagement and participation of national and local partners in humanitarian coordination and decision-making mechanisms in 2025. NNGO participation in the HCT was strengthened, with four seats allocated to NNGOs compared to one earlier in the year. An NNGO Advisory Group—bringing together a group of Sudanese humanitarian organizations with diverse geographical and sectoral representation—was formed to provide an additional two-way communication channel with senior humanitarian leadership. 2025 also saw the establishment of the WAG, a forum comprised of 22 Sudanese and refugee women humanitarian leaders that helps to ensure that the perspectives of women and girls, as well as WLOs, are amplified and effectively inform senior-level strategy-setting and decision-making.
Despite these advances, national and local organizations report continued barriers to their participation in the humanitarian response. According to the 145 community-based organizations consulted in the 2026 HNRP community consultations, these challenges include: limited opportunities and short funding cycles, capacity gaps, declining donor support, unequal distribution of resources (including preference for established partners) and insufficient communication and linkages with donors. Moreover, local responders, including MAGs, have faced heightened risks, including increased attacks, detention, looting and growing access constraints including interference and bureaucratic impediments.
Addressing these challenges will remain a central component of the humanitarian strategy for 2026, including through the development of an HCT localization strategy, increasing direct funding to national partners, expanding access to capacity-building, and further strengthening the voice and role of local and national partners as equal partners in coordination mechanisms and other forums.
“We are feeding communities, documenting violations, and protecting women, while struggling to survive ourselves. Funding rarely reaches us, even though we are the last ones standing.”
Psychosocial support staff working for a women-led organization, North Darfur
References
- IOM. Multi-Sector Needs Assessment, August 2025 (23 October 2025) (link).
- Accountability to Affected People Working Group. Community Consultations for a Community-Driven HNRP 2026 (link).
- Accountability to Affected People Working Group. Community Consultations for a Community-Driven HNRP 2026 (link).