Sudan

Rapid Gender Analysis Policy Brief: Sudan Conflict Response, May 2023

On April 15, 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into heavy clashes in Khartoum. The armed fighting is concentrated in urban centres, mostly affecting Khartoum and areas along the east-west corridor of Kassala to West Darfur.1 Violence continues to escalate despite the ceasefire that was announced on April 24, 2023. According to the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), between April 15 and 27, 589 people have been killed and 4,599 have been injured due to the violence.
As of 6 May, 334,000 civilians are estimated have been displaced internally (a majority of whom are women and children), fleeing to safer areas within Sudan while 120,0000 have left Sudan with the majority seeking refuge in
Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. Vulnerable populations such as female-headed households, persons with disabilities, urban poor, pregnant and lactating
women, children, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) before this conflict are at a heightened risk.
Frontline organizations have begun providing initial reports that residential buildings, water, and energy infrastructure are damaged, some banks have closed while communications and internet connectivity have also been breached. Basic services are down, and civilians risk their lives to travel to more secure areas. Families are prioritising women and children for evacuations to safer places, leading to family separations, and exposing them
to higher risks of gender-based violence and trafficking en -route to safety. For persons with physical disability, this is particularly difficult is possible as there is limited support to help their mobility. Public and private
facilities have been looted including health centres and aid organizations as the situation gets dire. Read More...

Foster good health and economic resilience (in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond): Integrated Programme to Reduce the Medium-term effects of COVID-19 (IPIC) in Sudan

This is the final evaluation for the Kassala state-implemented "Foster Good Health and Economic Resilience (in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond): Integrated Programme to Reduce the Medium-Term Effects of COVID-19 (IPIC)". The evaluation's goal is to assess the project's impact on the targeted beneficiaries and to assess the project's level of achievement, as well as to provide project stakeholders with information about the project's performance in relation to its stated objectives, from January 2020 to December 2022.
Relevance: The project was found to be relevant and responding to the real needs of the targeted communities. The selected communities are among the most vulnerable people in the state, with the majority of them living below the poverty line. According to the baseline survey conducted in October 2020, most of the targeted beneficiaries (53%) have incomes ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 SDG’s per month, which is equivalent to 22 to 44 USD.
Efficiency: The project was carried out with good and acceptable efficiency; the project completed 100% of its planned activities with a high level of participation from the targeted communities and important institutions, particularly the state ministry of health.
Effectiveness: The project was determined to be very effective and resulted in many changes among the targeted persons, as well as a substantial contraption for preventing COVID-19 and reducing its harmful influence on the targeted people, as evidenced by the fact that:
During the project's implementation period, a total of 47,268 people received COVID-19 knowledge and capacity building. This includes all people in the targeted areas, with the possibility of duplicate counting because some people received the awareness more than once. These capacity building and awareness programs were carried out through the execution of awareness campaigns, and the trained community outreached played important roles in disseminating information to their community members. The community outreached were carefully selected with gender (50% women) in mind, and they were trained and provided with the necessary COVID-19 prevention items.
The evaluation witnessed high level of impact and effectiveness in health sector, this ensured by the feedback of all consulted people by direct interviews, FGDs and KII interviews, in addition to the observation of the evaluation team. Different sorts of support offered to the three health facilities enhanced access to health care for 3015 HH (21,105 people), this representing all HH in the three villages.
Read More...

Multi-sectoral and integrated humanitarian assistance for the conflict displaced and most vulnerable populations Sudan

This baseline survey was conducted for the USAID/BHA funded project “Multi-sectoral and integrated humanitarian assistance for the conflict displaced and most vulnerable populations in South and East Darfur” implemented by CARE International in Sudan. The baseline was designed to collect data in selected communities in southern and eastern Darfur State to assess the situation before the start of the project and determine baseline values for project indicators. The baseline used multiple methods for data collection, including desk review of project documents, individual interviews with household leaders using a structured questionnaire, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with representatives of different groups in the communities, Key Informant Interviews (KII) with the respective institutions.

When asked how much water they collect per day for all uses, it was discovered that households collect a mean of 5.6 Jeri Can per day (1 Jerrican=20 liters) which gives 17 litters/day/person from all sources including unsafe ones, keeping in mind that this water is collected from all sources including unsafe ones and for all types of uses.

Access to latrine: From the total surveyed families, 39% do not have access to latrines (48.3% M, 31.9% F). Lack of access to latrines is common in SD, with the majority of HH (55.9%) without access compared to ED (21.4%). And from the total families;23.3% of the HH surveyed acknowledged that their family members usually practice open defecation (26.4%M, 20.8%F), 23.5% use community latrines, and 3.8% share latrines with their neighbors. 51.8% of those who have latrines are inaccessible to people with disabilities (61.5%M, 44.2%F).
Read More...

Beyond Economic Empowerment The Influence of Savings Groups on Women’s Public Participation in Fragile and (post) Conflict-Affected Settings

Promoting women’s meaningful participation and influence in governance processes in fragile and (post) conflict-affected settings (FCAS) is necessary to achieve inclusive development. Existing evidence suggests that by economically empowering women, they will be able to better participate in public decision-making processes. One such mechanism for women’s economic empowerment in Sudan is through Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), which are savings groups that offer women a space to come together to save money, take out small loans, and make investment decisions.
The mixed methods study conducted in seven villages across three states (East Darfur, South Darfur, and South Kordofan) sought to answer the research question “To what extent does women’s participation in savings groups affect their public participation in governance or decision-making processes?” Additionally, this study investigated the differences between women who participated in VSLAs under the Every Voice Counts (EVC) and Latter Day Saints Charities (LDS) Recovery Support for Vulnerable Households programmes as well as the differences from participation in different community groups (VSLAs, community advocacy groups, and other community-based organisations). These comparisons helped to offer an explanation of how different programmatic approaches from civil society and different community groups did or did not affect women members’ public participation.
Through the findings of this study, it can be concluded that indeed women’s participation in savings groups (VSLAs) affects their public participation in community governance structures and decision-making. The extent, though, is dependent on a variety of factors including the gender composition of the VSLA, the support of family and community members, the support and resources contributed by programmes and partners, social norms and exclusionary practices within the communities, and the will of the women members themselves. Read More...

CARE Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation (RGA-P) Kassala Sudan

This Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation (RGA-P) was carried out to understand women’s participation in both formal and informal structures, and the barriers to and opportunities for supporting women’s meaningful participation and leadership during the health and WASH protracted crisis in Kassala State. This RGA P was conducted in Kassala, a state in East Sudan, which borders Ethiopia and Eritrea and has a population of 2,8 million with a population of 1,271,780 below the age of 18. Annually, Kassala state is affected by natural crisis, floods, droughts and subsequent desertification, as well as man-made crisis. Refugees from Tigray and Eritrea settled in Kassala, making the state susceptible to higher rates of trafficking, smuggling and violence. Kassala state is one of the states with the country’s worst social indicators on malnutrition. Women and adolescent girls are exposed to high rates of female genital mutilation (FGM), high risk of kidnapping and high rates of child early marriage; with FGM and gender based violence (including FGM and early child marriange) all normalized within society. The prevalence of FGM in Kassala is at 40 % and children as young as six years are being engaged to be married.
As part of the RGAP, a training was conducted with staff and partner staff on Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE). The training helped staff to appreciate the approach as well as the methodology. Following the training, a team of sixteen staff members (15 female and 1 male) participated in the primary data collection in three villages. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with groups of women and men. Key informant interviews (KIIs) were held with women leaders, community leaders, government officials as well as one of the agencies that has been implementing in the area. Secondary data collection was also done to triangulate and validate findings.
Women in the three villages visited have limited decision making power and voice, both within the home and in public spaces. Some of the barriers to participation cited by women included lack of education, harmful social norms and practices that limit women and girls’ mobility and participation in public, and limited access and control over resources.
In the three villages where this RGA P focused, Wad Eissa, Shalataib, and Wad Bau villages, findings indicated there are no women participating in the key local level governance structure, referred to as the Popular Committee. Men occupy all the leadership positions and where women’s names were included in the membership list, it was often tokenistic without the women’s own awareness of their role. Apart from the popular committee, there is a community level “father’s group” that supports education in Wad Bau, there were no other visible formal or informal decision-making structures.
Only one active women’s group was identified in Wad Elisa, but no other women’s groups or associations were identified in the rest of the three villages. The group in Wad Eisa had been formed as a result of interventions lead by a German NGO, Welthungerhilfe (WHH), in the area. The other villages had had limited interactions with outside organizations both national, international and even the government.
The entry points to enhancing women’s participation and leadership during the health and WASH protracted crisis in Kassala State can be through the engagement of the traditional and trained midwives, the female teachers, and the mothers’ groups. CARE under the health and nutrition project are looking to form mothers and fathers’ group. This will help bring women together and create safe spaces for women to work together. In the three villages, there are trained midwives, and in Wad Bau there are three female teachers. These women already have the respect and support of the women, and these women can conduct awareness sessions and facilitate discussions with groups of women, regarding their concerns and how they can come together and take the lead in addressing issues that affect them. As teachers are often from outside the village and stay only for a few months at a time, this can be an effective starting point for engaging women but a more sustainable approach will need to be considered as well. Through the father’s groups, men and boys can be engaged, to mitigate GBV risks, that could emerge, due to women’s participation in decision making regarding different community issues. According to one of the male leaders, men have been resistant of women participating in decision making platforms, and social norms are not open to women speaking in front of men.
Read More...

Provision of lifesaving and sustainable WASH services for Vulnerable Populations in South Darfur and South Kordofan states, and emergency WASH services to Tigray refugees in Gedaref State Endline

This final evaluation conducted for the project “Provision of lifesaving and sustainable WASH services for Vulnerable Populations in South Darfur and South Kordofan states, and emergency WASH services to Tigray refugees in Gedarif State." The was evaluation conducted internally by CARE staff, led by the MEAL coordinator and the MEAL team in the field with support and cooperation from the project team. The evaluation took place in the three States (South Darfur, South Kordofan and Gedarif States) where project operated. The evaluation team used different methods for data collection, including FGDs, KIIs and desk reviews.
The project contributed to the reduction of morbidity and mortality through increased access to lifesaving and sustainable WASH services for 265,914 914 people (71877 women, 69058 men, 63740 girls, 61239 boys), especially targeting vulnerable refugees, IDPs and host community members in South Darfur, South Kordofan, and Gedaref states. The project also pre-positioned essential WASH supplies for any emergency or outbreak, which exceeded the targeted 248,017 individuals.
Based on the findings from direct consultation of the project beneficiaries and other stakeholders; the project was implemented with high effectiveness and efficiency, and good signs for sustainability for most of it is interventions. The project achieved all the planned interventions, and supported targeted beneficiaries to improve access to safe water, sanitation and improve hygiene practices.
Read More...

Provision of lifesaving and sustainable WASH services for Vulnerable Populations in South Darfur and South Kordofan states, and emergency WASH services to Tigray refugees in Gedarif State Baseline

This baseline survey was conducted internally by CARE staff, led by the MEAL coordinator. The main objective is to collect information on the project's indicators and to provide baseline data generated for the intervention areas in South Darfur and South Kordofan States. The baseline data was collected in SD using both quantitative and qualitative methods. In SK, the project used endline data from the recently ended ECHO project as a baseline, as that dataset covers the same areas and same indicators. The data collection and consultation involved 253 individuals (118 females, 135 males). 123 people were consulted in SD (34 females, 89 males) while 130 were consulted in SK (84 females, 46 males).
All consulted households have no water inside houses, and they have to go to collect water from external sources. The distance to water sources varies between communities, and takes considerable time they spend fetching water. Most of households confirmed they collect more than 5 Jerri Cans of water per day, but this is not available all year. This water is not only for human consumption and use; they use it also for animal consumption and irrigating trees.
There are many problems in water sources affecting participants' access to safe water. The top rated problems are the high cost of water, continuous breakdown of water points, congested water sources, and far distance to the sources.
Read More...

Gender-sensitive WASH, Health/SRHR, and Nutrition support to vulnerable communities in East Darfur and South Darfur Project

This baseline study is carried out for the project "The Gender-sensitive WASH, Health/SRHR, and Nutrition support to vulnerable communities in East Darfur and South Darfur Project." The project builds on CARE learning over many years in the region, responds to the global overviews and the donor GAC interest in saving the lives of conflict affected communities, by providing urgent humanitarian assistance to 144,173 persons including females, males, girls and boys, from the host, IDPs and refugees’ communities, located in 7 localities in ED and 2 localities in SD. The key live saving activities delivery is designed with a gender sensitive perspective focusing on the health and nutrition needs of pregnant and lactating women and girls of reproductive age and children under 5. The project activities include; WASH, Health and nutrition interventions. Read More...

Impact Evaluation of the Integrated Humanitarian Assistance Project that aiming to Reduce the Secondary Impacts of COVID-19 on the Most Vulnerable Populations in South and East Darfur

The evaluation intended to assess integrated WASH, health, nutrition, and multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA) programs. The evaluation conducted to answer questions related to quality and relevance of the project design, its activities and objectives in addressing the priority issues. This is in addition to assessment of project efficiency and to what extent the project resources have been used economically and in a timely manner. Moreover, the evaluation assessed the effectiveness and major achievements of the project to date. The evaluation also assessed the project impact and to what extent the project contributed to provision of sustainable, adequate, and lifesaving WASH, Health and Nutrition services to the targeted communities. This beside Identification of which positive outcomes that likely to continue after the project ends in addition to assessment of bottlenecks, opportunities and lessons learned to inform future planning.
Based on the desk review of available data, the evaluation was deploying different approaches to ensure rich data and triangulation of findings. These approaches were combining qualitative and quantitative methods to maximize validity and reliability. The main methods of data collection used were interviews with the primary stakeholders, observation, asking questions, review of documents and transect walking at sites. Different tools for data collections were used as well that included focus group discussions with different target groups, and observation check list, Key Informant Interview, questionnaire, asking open and closed questions with beneficiaries at water points and at health and nutrition centers.
The project is in line with national and State WASH plans. It was also found that, the project followed and complied with SMoH specifications and guidelines. The comprehensive community consultation indicated that all project activities, technology adopted, and outputs are quite relevant to the target communities and their actual needs and also appropriate for the selected areas. Generally, the evaluation team concluded that, the planned activities were completed with same allocated initial budget. Despite difficulties and challenges in the SLA areas and at sites located in territories between the government and SLA areas the evaluation team believes that, the project is efficient in terms of implementation of the planned activities and management of resources. Read More...

Enhancing resilience through improved food security, disaster risk reduction and peaceful co-existence In South and East Darfur

This base line survey was conducted for the project “Enhancing resilience through improved food security, disaster risk reduction and peaceful co-existence in South and East Darfur.” The baseline was designed to collect data in the targeted communities in South and East Darfur State to assess the situation before the start of the project and determine the benchmarks for the designed project indicators. The baseline used mixed methods for data collection, including: desk review of project documents, individual interviews with household leaders using structured questionaires, FGDs with representatives from different groups in the communities, KIIs with institutional representatives.
The targeted areas in East and South Darfur are suffering from acute and chronic malnutrition. It is widespread and poses a significant public health problem, caused by acute food insecurity, unstable livelihoods, limited health services, poor hygiene practices and the lack of access to adequate safe drinking water and sanitation practices.
Women and children travel far distance to fetch water. During the rainy season, people may get poor quality water, which negatively affects their health. The government institutions have very poor capacity and lack the required logistics to provide good and sustainable water supply.
Women and girls are vulnerable to GBV, especially when they go far distances seeking different services such as water collection, firewood, farming, marketing and markets.
Women also face a very high burden, as they are responsible and participating in all household chores such as childcare, farming, fetching water, and transporting products to markets. This negatively affects children's nutrition and hygiene practices and exacerbates malnutrition. On other hand they have a limited access to resources and income-generating activities, and do not share any responsibilities in community structure, where men alone control and have access of most resources and have more decision-making power than women.
847,126 people in South Darfur and 124,351 in East Darfur are in IPC Phase 3 or higher and unable to meet their immediate needs. Kass and East Jebel Mara in South Darfur have the highest number of people experiencing acute food insecurity at 25% and 35% respectively, which need urgent intervention to contribute in reduction of acute food insecurity caused by currency devaluation, inflation, and local conflict is hitting both states.
Read More...

Filter Evaluations

Clear all