Sudan’s emergency groups are the future of humanitarian aid, not a stopgap
For almost three years, Sudan’s networks of volunteer responders, known as the Emergency Response Rooms, or ERRs, have sustained communities through one of the most brutal and neglected wars of our time. What began as improvised neighborhood committees has evolved into a nationwide architecture of mutual aid that is redefining how humanitarian action can work.
With more than 33 million people in urgent need as conflict devastates the country, these volunteers are running community kitchens, providing primary health care, evacuating civilians, repairing water systems, documenting abuses, and reconnecting families. They're doing so in a context where the state has collapsed, international access is severely constrained, and entire cities have become battlegrounds.
As one volunteer, Asim, told us from a heavily bombed town in South Kordofan:
About the authors
Sara Pantuliano
Sara Pantuliano is the chief executive of ODI Global and an independent eminent person for the 2025 U.N. peacebuilding architecture review. She is a member of the Friends of Mutual Aid Advisory Council. She chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Reimagining Aid, has led U.N. operations in Sudan, and written extensively on conflict and humanitarian affairs.
Andrea Tracy
Andrea Tracy is the executive director of Proximity2Humanity, an NGO which channels donor funding to Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms via the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition. Tracy has more than two decades of experience across humanitarian and transition settings in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, including 15 years in senior USAID roles.
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