Authors:

PRANAV VS, HIYA, GUNCHA DANDONA, SUKRATI SHAH, HARSHIT, SANIYA

Sudan has been a highly conflict-prone zone and a perfect case study to understand global inequality, gendered
organizational structures, and persistent civilian violence. Humanitarian missions conducted by UN branches highlight the significance of SDG 10, which targets a reduction in global inequality within and among countries. The country has been in a civil war since due to the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting over resource-rich areas like oil-bearing Kordofan and Darfur, displacing millions amid atrocities including civilian massacres and famine, dividing the country into north and south. International peacekeeping missions in Sudan have involved missions like UNMIS (2005-2011) and UNAMID (2007-2020), which aim at stabilizing postcivil war north-south divides and Darfur’s ethnic conflicts, while humanitarian aid addresses ongoing crises displacing millions of civilians.

While the literature does acknowledge that mutual aid groups are much more effective than international NGO’s, it lacks information about how to integrate the informal and formal groups together for efficient funding mechanisms. It also fails to recognise the impact on certain vulnerable groups, such as displaced women and children. The research and insufficient data on the granular localisation strategy.

The paper aims to examine the structural, human, and epidemiological crises affecting Sudan’s health system under conflict. They aim to explore how international funding architectures can be redesigned to accommodate unregistered mutual aid groups while maintaining donor accountability; analyze the coping strategies adopted by Sudanese healthcare workers working in conflict zones, with focus on gendered differences in resilience, risk exposure, and care labor; and assess the extent to which Sudan’s “quadruple burden” of disease; communicable illnesses, non-communicable diseases, conflict-related trauma, and mental health conditions—poses a systemic threat to long-term public health recovery. Together, the questions situate health system collapse within intertwined governance failures, frontline labor precarity, and compounded disease burdens, highlighting the need for conflict sensitive, gender-responsive, and locally anchored health financing and recovery strategies.