Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to her Oral Statement of 5 February 2026 on Sudan, Official Report, column 438, what steps her Department is taking to strengthen closer work through local partners in Sudan.

I refer the Hon Member to the comments made by the Foreign Secretary in her article for the Daily Telegraph on 15 April marking the third anniversary of the war in Sudan, where she said:

Amid all this horror, another Sudan endures, defined not by violence, but by courage. Across the country, civilians continue to step forward where the state has collapsed, working to keep their communities alive.

Local emergency responders travel neighbourhood by neighbourhood, providing food, water and medicine in conditions of danger and deprivation that few could imagine. They are unpaid, unaligned, and often targeted by the warring parties precisely because of the alternative model of life they represent.

They are not simply delivering aid. They are preserving the social fabric of their country and showing that Sudan's future does not belong to armed men battling for power, but to citizens committed to dignity and coexistence. They must be recognised as the rightful architects of Sudan's future.

That is why we are protecting the UK's humanitarian support to Sudan and doubling our funding to these local responders, helping them to reach nearly two million people. Our aid will support that local leadership, not overshadow it. That is not only more effective; it is how a peaceful Sudan will be rebuilt.