Sudan at a glance

The crisis and the response

• Sudan has world’s largest IDP population: at least 4.9 million.
• Protracted displacement has accelerated urbanisation and created an assistance-dependent population with limited capacity for self-sufficiency.
• More people are now being killed by violence in Southern Sudan than in Darfur.
• Slow recovery in eastern Sudan: drought and new refugees from Eritrea and Somalia have increased humanitarian needs.
• In 2009, donors provided more than US$1.65 billion for humanitarian assistance, twice that of second largest CAP.
• Some donors restrict funding to Darfur and Southern Sudan, blaming monitoring and access constraints in the east.
• In early 2010, the UN proposed a comprehensive mechanism to coordinate the protection of civilians in armed conflict settings.

Donor performance

• New initiatives for better coordination have not led to notable successes.
• The failure to improve protection is partly attributable to lack of advocacy by donors and UN officials who are afraid of being declared persona non grata.
• In Southern Sudan, most donors fail to hold regional authorities accountable for aid disappearance and for not providing previously committed resources.
• Most INGOs were dissatisfied with donor efforts to facilitate humanitarian access, especially after the expulsion of several humanitarian organisations from Darfur.

Key challenges and areas for improvement

• Donors must identify qualified partners and staff to avoid a lack of response capacity.
• Effective and consistent systems for information gathering and analysis of threats need to be established.
• The international community must reach consensus on how to interact with the government of Sudan and strengthen efforts to facilitate humanitarian access.
• The roles of peacekeepers and humanitarian actors need to be more clearly differentiated in order to strengthen protection coordination mechanisms.

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