CORE Supports Locally Led Response in Sudan
Summary
In 2024, CORE committed $130,000 specifically to support women and children in the target areas in Khartoum State as part of the Strengthening Local Humanitarian Leadership Philanthropic Collaborative (LHL) . This coalition is committed to contribute $6.5 million in grants to support local humanitarian responders in Sudan. Specifically, the aim is to transfer decision-making power and accompanying resources to well-organized but informal networks of mutual aid groups known as emergency response rooms (ERR) , women’s response rooms (WRR) , and the Localization Coordination Council (LCC) .
CORE and the Sudanese Development Call Organisation (NIDAA) will continue their efforts to strengthen the capacity of WRRs through training, coaching and mentorship, and group cash transfers to support crisis-affected women and children and position the WRRs to receive future funding from other humanitarian stakeholders. Additionally, CORE aims to collectively mobilize additional philanthropic efforts to continue to raise funding for localized mutual aid models.
Approach
Participating members of the Strengthening Local Humanitarian Leadership (LHL) Philanthropic Collaborative will make an initial collective contribution of $2m to the intermediary of their choosing and commit to channel funding as directly as possible to the emergency response rooms (ERRs) and other mutual aid efforts in Sudan.
ERRs/women response rooms (WRRs) / localization coordination councils (LCCs) will provide documentation of the process, flow of resources and risk management controls governing the fund allocation, management and oversight, and an appropriate account of how funds were used including the activities, outcomes, and reach. Funders commit to accept reports in standardized formats, as able.
Case studies, impact stories and/or education and advocacy materials will be produced to demonstrate proof of concept and feasible approaches to innovative solutions for scaling impact. These materials will be used to 1) educate the philanthropic community and mobilize further funding for Sudan 2) share technical learnings to peer organizations on effective approaches to delivering vital assistance in Sudan.
Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) will participate in the coalition developed by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) and partners, and commits to direct and intentional support of WRR’s. CORE commits $130,000 of funding in 2024, specifically to support women and children in the target areas in Khartoum State. WRRs lead the prioritization and implementation of activities addressing nutrition, legal aid protection, psychosocial support, documenting women and girls’ experiences, monitoring rights violations and sexual and reproductive health needs among women and children across Khartoum.
This commitment will build on the existing services and structures to elevate the service provided to women and children through the WRRs. Support to each WRR will be provided based on each WRR’s capacity and the types of activities they already have experience implementing and the new activities they have prioritized for their constituencies
Action Plan
Background
Sudan is the largest, least funded humanitarian crisis in the world with over 25 million people in need of assistance. Security, operational access, regulatory, and donor risk-aversion barriers prevent the humanitarian apparatus from effectively delivering life-saving aid. As a result, informal networks of hyper-local mutual-aid groups, called Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) , Women Response Rooms (WRRs) , and Localization Coordination Councils (LCCs) self-organized to support their communities. Sudan has a long history of mutual aid and in the current crisis, ERRs have elevated global visibility and recognition by their ability to reach populations that traditional humanitarian actors cannot. Nevertheless, the non-traditional format, structure, and governance of ERRs, lack of understanding, and the risk-averse policies of international organizations prevent adequate assistance to ERRs.
These mutual aid groups are the most effective ways to scale up as the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate rapidly towards catastrophe. Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) began supporting Sudan’s ERRs and WRRs at the start of the war with group cash transfer (GTC) and multi-purpose cash assistance. CORE is one of few international actors to support women’s specific needs and will continue to focus on capacity building and technical assistance to the WRRs.
In the first GCT intervention of its kind in Khartoum, CORE and local NGO partner, Sudanese Development Call Organisation (NIDAA) , supported 11 WRRs to deliver six types of activities to 6,075 individuals through $49,000 in GCT. CORE’s CTA aims to address the outlined challenges by continuing not only GCT interventions, but by documenting and sharing learnings and challenges to encourage innovation and the advancement of the localization agenda to facilitate increased and more effective humanitarian assistance in Sudan. In addition, to reinforce commitments, CORE will also increase the absorption capacity of the ERR/WRRs through skills building and surging through the ERR/WRRs.
Progress Update
In 2024, CORE committed $130,000 specifically to support women and children in the target areas in Khartoum state. At the end of 2024 CORE and its partner NiDAA supported over 40 women-led mutual aid groups. A total of 13,252 individuals were able to access services provided by aid groups. Some of the key services that they provided were training sessions on psychological first aid and economic empowerment, maternal and reproductive healthcare, access to food (over 800 meals provided per day) , and referral support for legal aid, healthcare, psychosocial, and gender-based violence (GBV) support. Some of the challenges that CORE and its partner NiDAA faced were the ongoing insecurity due to the conflict that resulted in restriction of movement. Some lessons learned from this project was that many women were looking for income generating support for their families.
Due to the success of the project CORE has continued to receive support from an additional foundation to continue to do group cash transfer (GCT) that are focused on women and girls’ needs in the Khartoum state, one of the most affected areas from the ongoing conflict. Taking some of the lessons learned from our commitment, CORE is also focusing on vocational training and multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA) that are targeted for adolescent girls to improve their economic self-sufficiency.