1. Context
Although violent incidents have continued, the 2003 conflict between the Government of Sudan and rebel groups greatly subsided in mid-2016. Consequently, as new displacement reduced and humanitarian access gradually improved, senior government officials called on IDPs to return home or integrate locally. 1 At the end of 2016, some 3.3 million IDPs were displaced.2 Up to that time, most of the assistance provided for IDPs in Sudan had sought to meet IDPs’ short to medium-term needs through separate and rarely coordinated projects by humanitarian, development and peacebuilding players. Although it saved lives, IDPs did not see any substantial improvement in their circumstances and remained largely reliant on assistance. Dwindling financial resources and new humanitarian crises in other parts of the world also made it increasingly challenging for the international community to sustain its level of assistance.
This period coincided with discussions, as part of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance, including by better linking lifesaving interventions with longer-term development programming to end protracted internal displacement situations.3 The UN Country Team, international NGOs and donors in Sudan endorsed the emergent “New Way of Working”4, aimed at improving collaboration between humanitarian and development action. In particular, international players in Sudan sought to develop “collective outcomes,” which were led to the “concrete and measurable results that humanitarian, development and other relevant actors want to achieve jointly over a period of 3-5 years to reduce people’s needs, risks and vulnerabilities and increase their resilience”.5
International humanitarian, development and peace players in Sudan came together at the Collective Outcomes Conveners Group meeting in July 2018 to agree a set of collective outcomes, and the Durable Solutions Working Group, established in 2016 and backed by the Government of Sudan,6 began working on a pilot project, with the support of a Durable Solutions support cell set up within the Resident Coordinator’s Office. Durable solutions for IDPs were seen as being the key to lasting peace in Darfur, as evident from the joint political commitments made by the parties to the conflict.7 However, the diverse set of international players engaged in the Durable Solutions Working Group lacked updated, jointly owned evidence to better understand IDPs’ vulnerabilities, coping mechanisms, capacities, perceptions and settlement intentions so that durable solutions programmes could be crafted. Political tensions between national and sub-national authorities during this period also hindered any national durable solutions strategy being drawn up.