Oxfam's work in Sudan in depth

Oxfam has been assisting poor people throughout Sudan for more than 20 years. Today, we’re working with communities to provide 750,000 people with essentials such as clean water, sanitation, and education. War, drought, famine and floods have all plagued Sudan in recent decades and millions of its people live in poverty.

Oxfam in Sudan

Oxfam’s work in Sudan aims to give people the means to lift themselves out of poverty. In the remote and impoverished ast of Sudan, we support education projects for poor communities, and provide cash-loan schemes to help families set up their own small businesses and improve their homes. We work with the local authorities, developing systems to try and prevent food shortages. In the south of the country, we are helping people to recover from decades of a bloody civil war that left two million people dead and four million displaced. We’re providing water and sanitation.

We also work in the capital, Khartoum, helping people displaced by conflict elsewhere in Sudan to find a livelihood to support their families. We are campaigning for better public access to education.

In 2007, Sudan’s worst floods in living memory left hundreds of thousands homeless. We responded to the crisis by providing clean water sources and distributing emergency supplies such as blankets and shelter materials. We also supported local community groups by providing cash to help them restart the farms and businesses that were destroyed by flooding.

Currently, our largest operation is in Darfur in the west of Sudan, where we are providing more than 400,000 people affected by the ongoing conflict with vital humanitarian aid. Most of our work is in the vast camps – where two million people have sought shelter from violence – but we also work to help people in rural communities.

Our engineers provide clean safe water by drilling hundreds of wells. They also construct latrines and washing facilities. We distribute essential items such as soap, blankets and jerry cans for carrying water. In such large crowded camps, disease can spread rapidly, and our health experts make daily visits to mosques, schools and homes to educate people – especially children – about how to prevent this.

Many people have been stuck in these camps for three or four years and, as the conflict continues, they do not expect to be able to return home soon. People do not want to be dependent on aid but their traditional livelihoods have been destroyed, so Oxfam is helping them to find alternative means of income – by training people to become carpenters, craftsmen and veterinarians, and by providing animals such as goats and donkeys.

Oxfam works to raise international attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and advocates for an end to the violence and better protection of civilians. However, peace in Darfur cannot be realised without a successful peace in the rest of the country as well. Oxfam also calls for greater attention to be paid to the development needs of the often-neglected other regions of Sudan, and for full implementation of the nationwide Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

All of our work is done in partnership with Sudanese communities. Of Oxfam’s 500 staff in Sudan, 90 per cent are Sudanese. We have set up local committees to help begin and manage projects, to ensure they meet the real needs of local people. We train hundreds more local volunteers to help implement our work. In particular, we aim to empower marginalised sectors of society, and so we work closely with women and youth groups.

Last updated: July 08