E12. Changing the lives of 5.5 million people of Sudan_Godfrey Lokuju with Rumana Kabir

Lokuju is a humanitarian worker for the UN in Sudan. He started his career in the government but found working with aid agencies more impactful due to their focused agenda and dedicated resources. Currently, he coordinates efforts to assess needs and mobilize resources for humanitarian projects in Sudan. However, funding is a major challenge as Sudan receives less support compared to other countries. The ongoing crisis in Sudan and lack of international attention make it difficult to maintain momentum and support for their work. Hello, and welcome to my Mars Mantra podcast. In this podcast, I bring changemakers from around the world to talk about their personal experience and to share their stories of motivation to inspire audiences like you. Today I will bring one of my favorite classmates who I did my master's 20 years ago back in Oxford and we had a lot of interesting conversations. So I would like you to all know my friend, Godfrey Peter Lokuju. How are you Lokuju? Thank you, Romana. I'm well. I am talking to Lokuju from Sudan. And Lokuju, you're working with the UN there, right? Yes, Romana. You're right. I work for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNHCR. I'm currently based in Sudan, I'm from South Sudan myself. So I used to be one country, so at one point I was a citizen of this country, but now I'm a citizen of another country, a separate country for the separation. I would like to know about how it all started, because I remember when you joined the master's degree 20 years ago, you already had a lot of experience of working in the humanitarian sector. Yes, I've been thinking about it myself. I found out that it's kind of a series of events. It wasn't like something that particularly happened, but a series of events in a particular context. Right after my graduation, I studied in the Sudan University of Science and Technology where I graduated. I did water supply systems and structures. My country, Sudan at that time, was going through a wall. I couldn't return to South Sudan, so I was looking for work, so I got a job at the government, ended up being seconded to work on a UNICEF funded project. I was a civil servant for a number of years, I think approximately two years. What motivated me was, I think, a three-year opportunity to work for a project that was funded by the UN agency that was co-implemented with the National Water Corporation at the time in Sudan. It was more like, how can I use my skills, my engineering skills, after graduation to work and provide clean water and improve sanitation for people. I think it was mainly people who had been displaced by conflicts, not only from Western Sudan, in Dapur and Kodopan, but also in South Sudan, we had moved to Northern Sudan, another part of the country, Sudan at that time. To me, it was more like, hey, how can I use my skills to improve the livelihoods of displaced people? I think that was one. As I mentioned earlier, again, the context of the country where I was at that time, there was war, there was fighting, people were being displaced. I couldn't return to where I originally came from, in South Sudan. So I think it was two things. That's where all kind of all came together and ended up doing humanitarian work on a project that was both funded by UNICEF and implemented by a government entity in Sudan. Right. And since then, there was no looking back. You worked in so many places. And now you are back. Exactly. It's like a cycle, right? I started working in a number of countries for many years. But this time, in the aftermath of the recent fighting in Khartoum, on the 15th of April 2023, 5.5 million people were displaced inside Sudan and outside the country into neighboring parts of Sudan. What is your current role now? In my current role, I do coordination. I get agencies together. We get agencies together. So they do joint assessments of needs to understand what people require. And then, working with my colleagues, we mobilize money, supporting the humanitarian coordinator to mobilize resources, which is mainly money from various donor countries that comes down, and that money goes down into a number of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations so that they can design and implement emergency projects. Part of the work that I do is I speak on behalf of the people who need their assistance. I also speak on behalf of humanitarian agencies, in particular non-governmental organizations in this context. There are a lot of issues that we face that affect the delivery of humanitarian assistance and impediments put together by a number of different governmental entities that affect the timely delivery of assistance. So part of my work is to talk to those particular entities, mainly government institutions, to make sure they can allow humanitarian agencies to operate without obstacles. So I just started yesterday talking to the Humanitarian Aid Commission, for example, here in Sudan, to allow our agencies to work without special permits. Tell us about the reason why they need special permits to work. In a number of countries, we have to work through institutions, entities that are being identified as responsible for the coordination of humanitarian issues in the country. There could be administrative procedures that are put into place that affect timely provision of assistance to people who need them. So one of my work is to talk on behalf of these humanitarian agencies, talk to these commissions to allow humanitarian agencies to actually work without delay and to allow assistance to people. How many million people did you mention? 5.5 million people displaced internally and externally. 4.4 million people displaced within Sudan and 1.5 million left Sudan and Jordan and cross borders into Ethiopia, South Sudan, Egypt, and other countries. So that is a huge scale. In terms of you mentioning that you worked with the government in your earlier career, so which career do you feel was more impactful and what was the reason that you left the government and joined the aid agencies because it is such a big scale and do you think the aid agencies are able to have a bigger impact than a government? At the time, yes. I thought they had a focused agenda. They had dedicated resources and they had specific plans and plans to see how they actually achieve this objective. Just again, as I mentioned earlier, making sure that I put my role at that time. For example, the installation, for example, and drilling of bubbles, pumping of water from a bowl onto a storage tank and that water then goes to provide water to people who have left their homes in South Sudan or in western Darfur, in Darfur and Kordofan to camps within inside Darfur and the capital. So to me, I think the ability to achieve that on time or in a very short time frame, I think, was my motivation. Yes, the time and time working for the National Water Corporation, which was a government entity at the time, yes, it did help me do what I did working for a UNICEF funding project. But also I did learn a lot working with the government, understood the procedures, ways of working. Part of my work was talking to the government entities to make sure that aid is delivered on time and smoothly without any impediments. So yes, there are things I learned working with the government, but I thought it took a long time to get things done at that time. There were no dedicated resources put in place and there was a lot of inefficiencies to me. I think one reason was to say that, yes, the ability to work with an entity that can achieve something on time and have that impact with that group of people. And also when a country is affected by conflict, the governments are also affected. So it's really hard for them to have that kind of focus on delivering projects because they have wider issues which affect their ability to do a better job. Correct. At the moment, in Sudan, they're fighting an airport. Government employees have not received money for their salary for six months. So, well, not only them, but also many other people who have been displaced, who have lost their jobs, they've lost their land, their homes, were moved away. The government is looking for ways how they can actually operate, but it's not very easy. It's very difficult for them to do that. Yes. This is a focus more on putting resources to the security of the country. You mentioned that the government employees haven't got paid their salary, which is a really difficult situation, isn't it, for people to remain unpaid? Yes, it is. One of the things that I was discussing with the government ministries over the past two days was that they wanted to open schools. But in some of the schools, internally displaced people have moved into the schools, and right now they might be in schools. Right, so they're living there. So, they're living there. And so the challenge was how can they open schools so that children resume education. But at the same time, the government requires money, resources to pay teachers. And also, humanitarian agencies are also short of money because there are so many disasters going around the world. As soon as there is a new disaster, all the news headlines are about that new disaster. What is the situation? How do you keep your work going, and how do you motivate everyone to make sure that we get the attention we need for the important work that's going on on the ground? Yes, definitely a huge challenge. I just looked into an analysis of how much resources Sudan has received through what is called the Sudan Humanitarian Fund. To date, we have received 33% of resources that we've asked for the whole year. Around this time last year, the humanitarian agency received 55%. So, despite the displacement and the crisis in Sudan at the moment, we're getting less money this year. So, it shows that there's less resources coming to the country. On the other hand, we do see resources going to other countries. I was deployed to Ukraine last year. I was there in March and April, helping my colleagues there, my agency, to help respond to the crisis there. We see more resources coming to Ukraine than Sudan. So, I guess certain countries do not get that attention from donors comparatively. Also, even in the global news, you don't hear about Sudan because it's been going on and on and on for so long. People forget about these crises and disasters that are continuously affecting millions of people. Yes, that's what I agree with you. A security council can meet two days after the fighting in Palestine and Israel and Gaza. I was just talking to colleagues. We haven't seen that. The security council didn't meet in Sudan, specifically a few days after. Yes, they did discuss various issues in Sudan, but as an agenda, as a general agenda of issues that the security council was discussing and the General Assembly was discussing, but not a specific kind of city, but how institutions or countries can help stop the war in countries like Sudan. So, how many years this whole conflict has been going on in total? For more than 20 years, there's been an ongoing conflict in the western part of the country, in Darfur and Kodokan states of Sudan. And this new conflict began six months ago. So, Lokuju, how do you keep your optimism and keep your own hopes alive to keep on trying to help people in need? See, a change of what we can do as individuals or within our own organization to help someone get cash, someone who has been displaced get cash so they can buy essential items for their households, or rebuild a temporary shelter, or after drinking water, get drinking water. So, the little things will help become an entity here, open a school so that children can return to school, because being out of school is not psychologically good for children, as we have seen in many countries and during the COVID times in countries elsewhere, and even in Sudan. So, I guess that keeps me going. And what I do on a daily basis, including during weekends, like today. Today is a Friday, it's a non-working day, but I do work as well. So, Lokuju, this will bring me to your own inner resilience. How do you look after yourself in such a difficult situation? I do kind of, I think, maintain my connections, my family, my friends, including, of course, when I come to the UK, we do mix a cup of coffee. And for my alumni colleagues, for my tutors, I do maintain the networks. It's vital to me. I do maintain the network that I have here with individuals here in Sudan. My colleagues that I work with, working colleagues, but also the local Sudanese colleagues that I know that I've met here in France and previous colleagues I studied with at university in Khartoum. I think it's vital for me, vital to have those connections. The other thing that keeps me, you know, allows me to maintain is I do, I do, I like exercising. I joined a local football team here. I play football with them. I run a group of locals, colleagues, friends here. I do yoga. I do yoga, something I learned. I never did yoga when we were at university at Brookes. But a couple of years ago, I picked it up when I was in Somalia, when this little space in Mogadishu could look claustrophobic. So we needed to do something, and I joined a yoga class. So for the past four years, I've been doing yoga twice a day. It keeps my day balanced. It balances my day from the moment I have a yoga in the morning and a yoga session at the end of the day. So I think, and I keep on reading as well. Lastly, I do read. Yes, so not only topics around development, but also people who read other topics outside that as well. That is great. I'm very inspired now to hear that you're doing yoga, football and all the reading. Thank you so much, Lokuju. So how does it feel to come back to Sudan and give back in your own country now? Because now you're based in Oxford, but now you're working in Sudan. How does it feel? I studied in Sudan, studied in the UK, worked in Sudan, worked in the UK, and I worked in many other countries as well. I think I bring something more than just myself. I bring skills or experience that I've learned working in many countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, working in the UK, working at various levels of governance. I think I bring something more informed comparatively. Back to my work and my dealing to the people, the government entities that I deal with on a daily basis. And also, secondly, I think if you also kind of bring an understanding of the issues in Sudan, because I know the people. We end up in a way sometimes that I can easily relate to them, rebuild those relationships. I have a network of colleagues that I study with. You can easily pick a phone, talk to them, whether it's a water department or a geological department, to see how I can get the assistance. I talk to my home of tutors on a number of issues, maybe getting advice on something. So there's that two-way thing that I bring to returning to Sudan. Not only what I've learned outside and experiences, but also building on the people that I know, the network that I knew before. That's the feeling. And I speak the local language as well. I speak Arabic. So coming back and reviving my Arabic, but also at the same time, I can easily relate to the people that I work with, the institutions. That is great. And do you face any challenges? I guess the challenges that I face is the context of the war that's going on at the moment. It's not easy to get work done compared to other countries that I've worked in. And so the other thing is just the bureaucracy. I face challenges in terms of bureaucracy. As I mentioned earlier, I was talking on behalf of NGOs, so that those bureaucratic impediments being put by the government are removed to allow the delivery of water, delivery of food, cash. People need it. So at one point, you start asking, like, what happens? The human principles, we all sometimes think we should be all applying. And that's actually being understood by other entities. So this is a challenge that I face in my work, and trying to tell the government institutions here to make sure that our work is delivered. I guess there's a suspicion of foreign and non-governmental organizations overall. There's a suspicion. There's just a number of reasons why they think we're here implementing a foreign agenda. And on the other hand, human rights agencies and NGOs are here to carry out their work. So dealing with the security organs here on a day-to-day basis, the obstacles that are being put in place to make sure the work of human rights agencies is effective. Anything else you'd like to add? I guess in the context of war, really, systems break down. It's not easy for banks. Banks can't operate. So money can't be transferred, and projects cannot be implemented, because it takes time to actually get cash, and to not only pay your staff, but also to maybe pay your contractors, but also to start up. All these affect the implementation of human rights operations in Sudan. So that's another challenge I've been facing, and human rights agencies are facing in Sudan. Thank you, Lokoju. It was great speaking to you. I hope you keep looking after yourself so that you can look after all the people who need help.