ICAI’s assessment of initial follow-up: UK aid to Sudan

Summary

In October 2025, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) published a review of UK aid to Sudan, making seven recommendations to strengthen the response to the conflict and humanitarian crisis. Six months on, we followed up with the government to assess early actions taken in response. Our initial assessment finds encouraging early progress across all recommendation areas. The UK has increased high-level political attention to Sudan, expanded work on civilian protection, and strengthened cross-government coordination. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is also implementing a more coherent regional approach, including appointing a senior responsible owner for Sudan and embedding Sudan priorities across relevant country plans.

We welcome increases in both staffing and the predictability of funding for the Sudan response. Sudan-related teams have been expanded, and FCDO has confirmed a protected three-year funding allocation, providing greater predictability for partners and enabling more multi-year programming. Early steps have also been taken to allow travel to Sudan by FCDO staff enabling greater in-country engagement.

On localisation, FCDO has committed to more than doubling support to local responders to £15 million and aims to channel 30% of humanitarian funding through locally led initiatives by 2029. Additional targeted programmes for women and girls have been initiated, alongside a new Women, Girls and Inclusion Strategy.

Overall, ICAI considers progress positive at this early stage.  The key test will be whether these actions are sustained and how they translate into improved results over time. We will return for a more detailed assessment of the impact of these and other UK actions in April 2027.

Introduction

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) published a review of UK aid to Sudan in October 2025. This looked back over the past six years, from the hopeful period of democratic transition that followed President Omar al-Bashir’s fall in 2019, through the October 2021 military coup and the ongoing civil war that broke out in April 2023. Based on evidence gathered during the first half of 2025, the review examined the UK’s diplomatic, development and humanitarian support to Sudan and people affected by the conflict in neighbouring countries. It concluded that the UK played an important international leadership role in responding to the crisis and was valued for its expertise and humanitarian response, but that UK impact was constrained by funding uncertainty, staffing challenges, difficulties working directly with local organisations, and a lack of evidence on whether support was improving outcomes for women and girls. ICAI also highlighted the need for consistent political attention to the crisis, a more coherent cross-government and regional approach, and greater agility in delivering aid in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Six months on, we followed up with the government to assess early actions taken in response to the review. This statement gives ICAI’s initial view on the progress that has been made. We have also published the government’s own account of actions it has taken in response to the recommendations [link] and assessed supporting evidence.

At this early stage, we are considering actions such as decisions taken, plans made or changes to policy rather than assessing the impact of these in full. We will make a further assessment in April 2027, when we expect to look in more detail at the evidence of impact of these and further actions in Sudan and relevant neighbouring countries.

Recommendations

Recommendations

ICAI’s review of UK aid to Sudan made seven recommendations:

Recommendation 1: Ensure sustained high-level political attention to the Sudan conflict and humanitarian crisis, including by strengthening cross-government ownership and coordination.

Recommendation 2: Develop and implement a clear regional approach to the Sudan conflict, aligning strategies across Sudan and neighbouring countries.

Recommendation 3: Align delivery capacity with ministerial ambition by backing Sudan’s priority country status with multi-year, protected funding and adequate capacity to deliver effectively.

Recommendation 4: Adopt a more agile and coherent delivery model for fragile and conflict affected environments, to maximise agility in dynamic contexts.

Recommendation 5: Support the UK’s localisation commitment by increasing direct funding to local organisations, simplifying compliance procedures, fostering long-term partnerships and strengthening local leadership of humanitarian response and resilience building.

Recommendation 6: Address the need for more targeted programming for priority gender-related challenges in Sudan and assess how well the current mainstreaming approach is delivering results for women and girls.

Recommendation 7: Use learning from the Sudan conflict as an opportunity to rethink and adapt UK international leadership on mobilising and coordinating the international response to major crises, given severe global funding pressures, a shifting donor landscape and rising humanitarian need.

Assessment of progress

ICAI recognises that Sudan is seen as a top priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), with the UK having doubled its aid to Sudan and neighbouring countries to £231.3 million in 2024-25. Our review highlighted the importance of high-level political attention being sustained over time and the opportunity presented by more structured and developed cross-government activity.

We have seen a visible step-up in the level and breadth of high-level UK political attention on Sudan with a continued focus on the humanitarian situation and the appalling impacts on women. There has been new activity and increased political leadership on atrocity prevention and conflict resolution. Alongside political attention, we understand that since the review, FCDO has broadened its work on protection of civilians, including through supporting greater local level protection programming and launching the Coalition on Atrocity Prevention for Sudan, thus pursuing more of the menu of options originally considered in the FCDO’s internal 2024 paper, referenced in the ICAI review.

There has been some strengthening of cross government ownership and coordination, for example through the introduction of fortnightly cross-Whitehall meetings chaired by the Cabinet Office. In terms of specific departmental contributions, a joint visit by FCDO and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to Port Sudan in January 2026 was an important event; and the development of work across Whitehall on the commercial and financial enablers of the conflict has been notable and welcome.

On both political leadership and cross government working, it will be critical for these changes to be sustained and embedded. When we revisit progress next year, we will be looking to see if this positive momentum has been maintained.

Our review highlighted the absence of an explicit regional strategy and the need for a clear regional approach to the Sudan conflict. FCDO is addressing this in two main ways: establishing a senior responsible owner for Sudan at director-general level and utilising the recent country business planning process to ensure that the UK’s Sudan priorities are integrated into the plans of relevant embassies and high commissions. This combination appears appropriate, with priorities reinforced through the leadership network, and then the detail of action and resourcing implications addressed through business planning. When we revisit progress, we will want to see how these mechanisms have enabled more effective action, identified opportunities or helped manage risks and surface trade-offs.

Our review highlighted many strengths in the UK’s support to Chad and South Sudan.  However, the review also flagged the risk that, in a context of reducing aid budgets, the prioritisation of the Sudan conflict could divert attention and resource away from other pre-existing humanitarian need in the region. Whilst we understand that the allocations for both Sahel (from which resources for Chad are drawn) and South Sudan will be protected across the three years of the current spending review (to 2028-29), these allocations will be around 20-30% lower than those planned for 2025-26. When we revisit progress, we will look at how this risk is being managed.

Our review described how skilled and trusted FCDO staff have been critical to the UK’s credibility, relationships and influence. We also highlighted the mismatch between ministerial ambition and staffing levels meaning that teams, and particularly the British Office Sudan, were under-resourced and overstretched. Staffing levels in both the British Office Sudan and in the Sudan Unit UK have been increased and we understand that these higher levels will be maintained through current FCDO restructuring. This is very welcome and appears already to be enabling FCDO to take forward important areas of work that were previously constrained. The level of change and disruption represented by wider FCDO restructuring does represent some risk, however, even to areas whose resourcing is protected. When we revisit progress, we will want to look at how Sudan staffing has been maintained and whether reductions in other areas have undermined the broader expertise or systems on which the Sudan teams rely.

In terms of financial resources, our review highlighted how short-term budget cycles and a lack of predictability had hampered planning for FCDO and partners and was undermining effectiveness. FCDO has now confirmed a fully protected three-year allocation for Sudan at the same level as the 2025-26 expenditure. We understand this is already enabling the signing of multi-year arrangements with some partners. When we revisit progress, we will want to look in more detail at how this increase in predictability is translating into better use of resources and improved partnerships.

Our review identified where FCDO corporate systems were helpful, such as flexible business cases that enabled timely humanitarian responses, but also identified areas where corporate systems such as that governing security and travel risk assessment appeared to constrain effectiveness. Since our review, there has been some clear progress with FCDO staff having visited Port Sudan and with the risk and logistics assessments in place to enable travel to Khartoum now completed. FCDO is also now recruiting for two Sudan-based roles. The extent to which corporate systems support work in challenging contexts such as Sudan and the extent to which the delivery model has evolved will be areas to follow up in more detail next year.

Our review found that, despite stated ambition, the UK’s cautious approach to localisation and limited resources were constraining the full potential of local partnerships. Since the review, two very clear commitments have been made by FCDO: to more than double support to local responders to £15 million this year and to channel at least 30% of humanitarian funding to locally-led initiatives by 2029. We understand that Sudan teams have been able to simplify some compliance processes for their support to local responders. As the team takes this work forward, they are keen to learn from others and to share their experiences with other partners and with different parts of FCDO. When we revisit progress next year, we will want to look in more detail at progress towards these targets, the impact of the changes and the opportunities and risks that the teams are managing.

While acknowledging the leadership shown by the UK for women and girls in Sudan, our review encouraged FCDO to consider providing more targeted gender-related programming and to consider how effective its mainstreaming of gender has been.   Since our review, additional targeted funding through the HOPE-S programme (Healing, Outreach, Protection, and Empowerment – Sudan) has been committed and we understand bids to implement this programme are currently being reviewed. The HELP-S programme (Humanitarian Emergency and Longer-term Planning for Sudan), already underway, also contains elements targeted to women including funding being channelled more directly to women-led organisations. On mainstreaming, the team are currently working to produce a Women, Girls and Inclusion Strategy. When we review progress next year, we will want to look in more detail at the implementation of these targeted programmes and at the finalised strategy for inclusion.

The intense challenges of the Sudan conflict and the broader funding landscape are forcing countries, the multilateral system and agencies to rethink how they respond to major humanitarian crises. On Sudan, the UK has a number of important donor coordination and leadership roles and our review found widespread respect for this contribution. We understand the Sudan teams are harnessing learning from Sudan and feeding it into a range of other debates including with the UN system and with the multilateral development banks. We look forward to seeing how learning is being captured and how these debates have developed when we return to review progress in 2027.