A freedom of information request has revealed that an AI system used by the UK government for assessing benefits cases is apparently getting it wrong by a “statistically significant” amount.

On 5 November 2024, Iris Lim presented “Digital Access to Welfare Services and Food Assistance for Migrants in the UK” at the Future of Immigration Conference 2024.

The UK team co-delivered an interactive workshop “Digital Solutions for Food Insecurity: Can Technology Address Food Access Challenges?”

In this blog, IHSA Vice-President and Senior Research Fellow at the Food Studies Centre at SOAS (University of London) Susanne Jaspars summarises and expands upon a contribution to the roundtable that followed the inaugural IHSA Annual Lecture on “War and Humanity” held in Bergen in May 2024.

This article, originally published on 30 October 2024 by Disasters, explores the role of historical, political, and economic processes in understanding war and famine in Sudan after 2023.

From 16-19 July 2024, Sathya and Susanne participated in a conference in Amsterdam organised by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).

In this podcast, Dr Susanne Jaspars and Dr Tamer Abd Elkreem speak with Amnesty International Students Rotterdam about the ongoing crisis in Sudan.

Check out our panel on ‘governance, politics and food security’ at the upcoming DSA conference.

On Wednesday the 24th of April, 2024, the team presented preliminary findings of the research at the CEDEJ Khartoum office in Cairo.

The Humanitarian Evidence and Discourse Summary has selected the Sudan Project Blog post as one of the top 5 reads in the October issue.

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Iris Lim participated in the @ESRC Festival of Social Science, held on 3rd and 6th November, SOAS

From 5-7 November, the ‘digitalising food assistance’ team participated in the World Conference on Humanitarian Studies. 

Susanne and Tamer participated in a conference (from 18-20 October 2023) at the University of Bergen, marking the 60 year anniversary of academic collaboration between Bergen and Sudan, in particular the University of Khartoum

The past two decades have seen an acceleration in the digitalisation of food assistance and social welfare.

Sudan has experienced a catastrophic increase in violence since 15 April, particularly in Darfur and in the capital Khartoum.

يشهد السودان تصاعداً مهولاً في العنف الدائر بالبلاد، منذ ١٥ أبريل الماضي، تحديداً في دارفور وفي العاصمة الخرطوم. ترك الصراع العنيف بين قوات الدعم السريع شبه العسكرية، والقوات المسلحة السودانية للسيطرة على البلاد ومواردها، أثراً بالغاً على حيوات معظم سكان السودان. وعلى الرغم من أن هذه المعركة تبدو للوهلة الأولى وكأنها حدثاً طارئاً ، إلا أن الواقع الحالي يقتضي النظر إليها كتكثيف لنشاط الاقتصاد السياسي السوداني الاستخراجي (الريعي)، بجانب استخدام المليشيا في خوض الحروب الداخلية السودانية

The current crisis in Sudan has deep roots. Seemingly erupting suddenly, it has in fact been a long time coming. Sudan is a highly unequal country – socially, politically, and economically, along geographical, ethnic and class axes.

The 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic have dramatically accelerated the use of digital technologies to respond to food insecurity and humanitarian crises.

This working paper presents the findings of a brief exploratory study into the role of digital technologies in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and its implications for starvation and famine risk.

This paper examines North–South linkages in the politics of contemporary food assistance and social welfare, and in particular the normalisation of poverty and humanitarian crisis caused by increased digitalisation, privatisation and individualisation of aid or welfare.

Food aid has long been a part of Sudan’s political economy; whether as a form of government budget support, a way of maintaining or attracting political allies, to feed soldiers or deny food to enemies.

لأول مرة في عقود من الزمان أصبح للسودان فرصة حقيقية لتحقيق التغيير السياسي والإقتصادي. لقد أدت ثورة ديسمبر لعام 2019 إلى تشكيل حكومة إنتقالية عازمة على دعم حقوق الإنسان والمفاوضات السلمية بالإضافة إلى عقدها لإنتخابات ديمقراطية. إن البرمجة بصورة مراعية للنزاعات مهمة في هذه الفترة وذلك لعدة أسباب: 1. يمر السودان بعدة أزمات متداخلة بعضها سياسية وأخرى إقتصادية أو صحية، بالإضافة إلى النزاعات المتواصلة وعمليات النزوح المطولة بدارفور، زيادة على تدفقات اللاجئين. 2. إن المعونات الغذائية جزء مهم من المساعدات الإنسانية وقد تم التلاعب بها بصورة كبيرة في الماضي. 3. إن البيئة السياسية الجديدة تفتح الفرصة لتحقيق أقصى قدر ممكن من الآثار الإيجابية للمساعدات الغذائية.

For the first time in decades, Sudan has a real opportunity for political and economic change. The 2019 revolution resulted in a transitional government committed to promoting human rights, negotiating peace and holding democratic elections.

The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed or intensified ‘remote’ forms of working.  Like for much of the world’s population, the mobility of aid workers has become restricted and so have the possibilities of distributing material or in-kind aid.