From Emergency Response to Feminist Action: The Evolving Role of Women Led Organizations in Sudan

This report is based on a mapping and in-depth interviews with women-led organizations (WLOs) engaged in sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) response across Sudan. The methodology combined desk research with direct outreach to WLOs to contextualize their roles within the broader war dynamics and humanitarian crisis. The report centres the narratives of the WLOs by showcasing a substantial number of quotes in the text. This is deliberate especially taking into consideration that the WLOs interviewed felt excluded from strategic decision-making and global humanitarian discourses.

Globally, humanitarian funding is shrinking, and resources for sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) programming are among the hardest hit. A recent UN Women survey (2025) warns that half of women-led organizations (WLOs) operating in humanitarian settings may shut down within six months due to these cuts. In Sudan, this global trend intersects with the collapse of state institutions and deliberate political obstruction of humanitarian access, leaving local WLOs are the backbone of the SGBV response in a context where sexual violence is being used as a so-called weapon of war. SGBV, and sexual violence in particular, are politically and culturally sensitive even before the outbreak of war, and thus WLOs receive pushback both from the armed actors actively using it as a political tool, but also in some instances local communities such as eastern Sudan where there has been little tradition of public participation of women. During the current war and humanitarian crisis, female humanitarian workers are hyper visible and put at risk not only because of their work and its sensitivity, but also because they are challenging traditional gender roles by being actively engaged in helping local communities.

The main findings from the report suggest that WLOs play a crucial humanitarian role, but that they meet several barriers and challenges. Some of these challenges are structural and systemic to the global humanitarian architecture such as limited funding, lack of donor flexibility, exclusion from strategic decision-making and limited coordination mechanism. Other constraints arise from the political and security context within Sudan and includes the politicization of humanitarian aid, bureaucratic barriers and control mechanisms and complex dynamics with conservative local communities working on “sensitive” issues such as SGBV. There are additional challenges related to internal organizational capacities and operational risks, including limited access to training, high turn and displacement of staff and personal risks and safety concerns especially related to women working in patriarchal contexts.

The term women-led organization (WLO), as defined in humanitarian guidance, refers to organizations “governed or directed by women, or whose leadership is principally made up of women.” While widely used in humanitarian settings, this designation does not automatically imply a feminist identity or agenda. Our mapping revealed significant conceptual ambiguity: although all WLOs we interviewed were engaged in SGBV response, their organizational trajectories and self-definitions varied. Many have shifted from human rights-based work to humanitarian relief under the pressures of war, yet most describe themselves as both humanitarian actors and rights defenders, without perceiving a contradiction between these roles. Few organizations drew clear distinctions between WLO, women’s organization, and feminist organization—an indication of a fluid and evolving landscape. At the same time, young women, particularly those leading feminist emergency rooms (ERRs), displayed a strong and explicit feminist identity and were at the forefront of shaping new organizational forms and discourses. This dual positioning illustrates what we call the humanitarian–feminist nexus: WLOs are simultaneously delivering life-saving services and advancing transformative agendas that challenge patriarchal norms. Conceptually, feminism in this context goes beyond gender equality as service provision; it is rooted in structural change—addressing the continuum of violence, dismantling militarized masculinities, and promoting bodily autonomy and intersectionality.

Recognizing this nexus is critical because treating WLOs as mere service providers risks sidelining their potential as agents of structural change. Importantly, despite dwindling funding for long-term development work, many WLOs continue to emphasize goals such as legal reform, stigma reduction, and the inclusion of men and boys—signals of feminist praxis that is often implicit, but in some cases boldly articulated by emerging feminist actors. As such, Sudan’s WLOs are part of a broader feminist movement that challenges patriarchal militarism and humanitarian silos. Their dual role, as emergency responders and political actors, makes them central to response but also long-term transformation and prevention. The humanitarian–feminist nexus in Sudan illustrates how women-led organizations, especially feminist emergency response rooms, transform emergency response into movement-building rooted in grassroots legitimacy, marking a decisive shift from historically elite-driven women’s activism toward a decentralized, post-revolution feminist landscape.