Emergency Response Rooms and Collective Action in Sudan
From Into Africa by CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies
April 9, 2026 · 48 min
About this episode
The episode discusses Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms and the role of young volunteers in providing essential services amidst conflict.
In this youth roundtable, Catherine Nzuki, Associate Fellow with the CSIS Africa Program, is joined by two Sudanese scholars to discuss Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, a grassroots network of young volunteers delivering food, medicine, and essential services across all eighteen states in Sudan. Noaman Mousa is a political science PhD student at UCLA, where his research focuses on civil wars and state-building in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yasir Zaidan is an adjunct lecturer at Seattle University and a PhD student at the University of Washington, where his research examines the expanding influence of Middle Eastern states in the Horn of Africa. Together, they trace the ERRs' origins in the neighborhood resistance committees that drove Sudan's 2019 revolution and explore what a day in the life of an ERR volunteer looks like across different regions and frontlines. Yasir and Noaman also reflect on the deepening of ethnic and tribal cleavages in Sudan since the outbreak of war in April 2023, the role of Gulf states in prolonging the conflict, and the difficult question of what a path to peace might look like. Reading Recommendations from Noaman Mousa: The Coup-Civil War Trap, Phil…
People in this episode
Host: Catherine Nzuki
Guests: Noaman Mousa, Yasir Zaidan
Topics covered
- Emergency Response Rooms
- Sudan
- grassroots networks
- youth activism
- civil wars
- ethnic cleavages
- Middle Eastern influence
Keywords
- Emergency Response Rooms
- Sudan
- youth volunteers
- civil wars
- ethnic conflict
- Middle Eastern states
- grassroots activism
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: CSIS Africa Program
Places: Sudan, UCLA, Seattle University, University of Washington
More episodes of Into Africa
- Into Africa: Season One Reflections · May 7, 2026 · 10 min
- Beyond Aid: Redefining Africa’s Development · April 23, 2026 · 43 min
- In the Shadows of the Iran War: The Horn of Africa · March 26, 2026 · 29 min
- Pulse Check: The New U.S-Africa Health Deals · March 12, 2026 · 50 min
- Nigeria: Religion, Power, and Peacebuilding · February 27, 2026 · 57 min
- Sudan: Navigating the World’s Largest Humanitarian Crisis · February 12, 2026 · 39 min
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