The Economics of Volunteering in Sudan: Between Noble Intentions and the Absence of Governance

Walid Dalil**
The images of volunteers at Al-Nau Hospital breaking down in tears or sitting silently on the ground after being prevented from continuing their voluntary work deserve reflection that goes beyond the emotional impact of the scene to something deeper. They open the door to an issue rarely addressed in Sudanese public debate: the economic and institutional dimensions of voluntary work, which has expanded enormously and assumed increasingly interconnected roles since the outbreak of the war, to the point where it has become a parallel sector worthy of analysis in its own right, separate from the sanctity attached to the humanitarian work on which it is founded.
Unlike many of the experiences I have encountered or read about, Sudan presents a unique model of what might be described as long-term volunteering, or even involuntary volunteering, whereby voluntary work evolves from a temporary activity complementing a person’s professional life into an entire way of life in itself. A volunteer marries, has children and enrols them in school, yet continues to carry the same status with which he began two decades earlier, without ever moving into formal employment or pursuing an independent professional career. From a purely economic perspective, this transformation raises a legitimate question that should not be avoided: how do these individuals finance their everyday obligations when they have no declared, stable income? In most cases, the answer lies not so much in presumed corruption as in an invisible economy of allowances, facilities and social networks generated by voluntary work itself. This is an economy that appears in no published budget, and that is precisely why it deserves to be studied rather than condemned.
To understand why many volunteers insist on continuing despite official decisions suspending their activities, it is useful to consider the concept of volunteer identity, a phenomenon documented in the literature of social psychology. This occurs when the voluntary role evolves from an activity performed by an individual into an integral part of that person’s sense of self and social worth. When a volunteer who has spent many years in a particular role is asked to stop, the decision is not perceived merely as a routine administrative measure, but as an existential threat to their identity. This helps explain the psychological distress and media escalation that may follow. It also helps us understand the recurring conflicts between volunteers and the administrations of institutions that are supposed to be their partners rather than their adversaries.
This psychological understanding, however, should not exempt the sector from rigorous economic scrutiny, particularly in relation to the takayas — community kitchens and food-relief initiatives — whose activities have expanded on an unprecedented scale during the war. When a simple grassroots initiative develops into a network managing hundreds of millions in donations, and becomes an effective, albeit undeclared, source of livelihood for some of those running it, continuing to operate outside any legal or regulatory framework — and refusing to comply with suspension orders even when issued by the competent state authorities — ceases to be merely a noble humanitarian stance and becomes a governance problem that cannot be justified solely on the grounds of maintaining continuity of service. Initiatives that spent forty years before the war without distributing a single meal, only to find themselves managing vast resources within a few years, deserve to be asked precisely the same questions that would be put to any financial institution: Who has signing authority? Where are the funds held? And are the accounts audited by an independent body?
The absence of clear answers to these questions is not a matter of bureaucratic pedantry. It is precisely what prevents these initiatives from developing into institutions capable of attracting international funding. Major donors, by virtue of their internal policies, do not fund individuals, however sincere or dedicated they may be. Instead, they support entities that have legal registration, approved budgets and periodic financial reports that are subject to audit. Consequently, any initiative that insists on remaining outside this framework, however well-intentioned, effectively condemns itself to dependence on sporadic, short-term donations while missing the opportunity to transform its activities into genuinely sustainable institutions.
Another issue deserving attention is the ambiguous relationship between this expanding voluntary sector and formal state institutions. When a competent authority issues a decision suspending a particular activity, and that decision is met with open resistance — or, at times, even military or quasi-military escalation in defence of the continuation of that activity — we are confronting a crisis that goes far beyond a mere administrative disagreement. It is a crisis concerning the position of civil society initiatives in relation to the authority of the state itself, at a time when the state has an especially urgent need to bring all actors under a single institutional framework, regardless of how noble their intentions may be.
Voluntary work in Sudan during this war has played an undeniable humanitarian role. It has genuinely saved many lives that might otherwise have been lost but for the sacrifices of these young people. However, allowing this sector to continue without a clear legal framework, transparent financial governance or institutional boundaries separating voluntary organisations from the personal identities of those involved will leave it vulnerable to suspicion, regardless of the integrity of the majority of those working within it. It will also prevent the sector from evolving into the form it deserves to take: well-established Sudanese humanitarian institutions capable of surviving beyond the war rather than merely operating during it, and capable of earning the confidence of people at home and abroad not through emotion alone, but through the transparency and accountability that are indispensable for any organisation entrusted with the public’s money.
** Banking Expert

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=16838