An interview with Yasir Omer Taha

“Fiction stories are extremely important. They describe elements and details within a crisis that we don’t see, and dramatize and romanticize it. That stays with readers. It influences their emotions, and actions, and that awareness is very important especially to societies that haven’t experienced war,” says Yasir Omer Taha, National Coordinator with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Tell me about your work. What do you do? 

A key part of my job is to enable humanitarian access. OCHA has been mandated by the General Assembly to lead humanitarian access for the humanitarian system. We work with other UN agencies, NGOs and government officials to ensure that humanitarian personnel and supplies can reach affected people in time, and that people have access to assistance and humanitarian workers. This is the best part of my job. I am the focal person for engagement with the government. When I say government in Sudan, I don’t refer to the civilian part of government, but the other players in Sudan that have a role in granting humanitarian access. Another part of my job is to promote partnership with other national NGOs, the Arabic or Islamic or faith based organizations. These are important partners and we need to collaborate with them. 

What are some of the humanitarian access challenges you’re facing at the moment?

Humanitarian access has improved very much when I compare it with the old regime. The most important thing is that humanitarian organizations have the freedom, liberty and independence to identify humanitarian needs by conducting needs assessments, determining the targeted populations, and implement their programs in a neutral and independent way. We’re working to ensure all that obstacles are removed so that people in need of assistance are reached.  Right now, there’s peace talks in Sudan between the government and Non State Armed groups, and it’s important at this point to ensure that peace dividends reach all people including those not under government control. 

The containment measures imposed by the government have created new access constraints for humanitarian workers in Sudan for example, the movement of staff.  The restrictions are understandable as the government has been trying to limit the transmission of the virus and keep people save. I appreciate that humanitarian actors quickly reviewed their working modalities and adapted alternatives that keep both staff and beneficiaries safe.  Local authorities have also demonstrated openness and flexibility and are regularly conversing with the international community to find solutions to these access constraints.    

The pandemic had made it clear that nothing can defeat human beings when we think, create and find alternatives.  

What are the key humanitarian challenges in Sudan today?

Classically, the ability of humanitarian actors to reach people with humanitarian assistance is the number one issue. Sometimes, bureaucratic impediments, physical conditions, for example, the roads, are often impassable especially during the rainy season. The lack of funds is another challenge; out of US$1,633,403,131 that is required, only 42.2% US$1,633,403,131has been funded as of today . We may have access to certain locations, however the resources to intervene properly are insufficient or inadequate. For example, another challenge, particularly in the deep field locations in remote areas is inadequate capacity of local actors to implement programs and that’s why a lot of NGOs are partnering with national NGOs.  Recently, COVID19-related restrictions have impacted livelihoods of the most vulnerable, IDPs, refugees, farmers, daily wagers and pastoralists. Now there are more demands for interventions in all areas, including in health, water, hygiene promotion, education, nutrition, food, etc. 

When you think about Sudan or other humanitarian crises, what is the one thing that could be done to find solutions?

The world is a small village and what happens in Sudan has consequences in other countries, and what happens in other countries has consequences in Sudan. What I want to say is that if there’s a country with a challenge, a problem that’s slowing down the progress of another country, there should be a global effort to resolve that problem. If there’s war in one area, for example, there needs to be a wide platform to bring about peace in that country. There are wars in many parts of the world. We’re also seeing a lot of natural disasters, hurricanes, floods. Although am in Sudan, I should contribute to reducing the suffering of those people, to save their lives. We share humanity in this world and we should work together to address the challenges in our countries. By doing this, with all the resources, the expertise, the will, reducing interferences from regional countries in other countries, we’ll be able to reach peace. War is one of the significant factors causing crises followed by natural disasters, and in every scenario we should be able to work as one team. This may be very idealistic, but it’s the truth. If we keep interfering in the business of other countries, if we’re unable to support our brothers and sisters, we shall continue to have these problems and this will have a negative impact on the countries that are not in war.

What do you think can be done to stop these wars?

Political will in each country constitutes an important factor to reach or find peace. We all understand that every country has friends, alliances, lobbyists, that it works with. By mobilizing and advocating and influencing the friends of that country, its alliances, we’ll be able to perhaps change the political dynamics or will of that country to work for peace. That’s very important, and this is exactly what I meant about working together to make sure that countries experiencing war are not being supported to keep the war going on and on and on.

What has been your greatest professional achievement so far?

Am proud of a project I led in 2003, when I was working with UNICEF. It was during the war between south and north Sudan. We succeeded to construct forty classrooms with semi-permanent materials in 35 locations in Upper Nile and Jonglei states. The difficulty was that this project involved transportation of materials to the site and making sure the construction was according to national standards. The practice at that time was to construct classrooms with local materials, but for the first time we were able to build them with semi-permanent materials. 

What is your greatest professional fear?

I fear a situation where, and this is really very honest, we’re unable to reach certain locations, and when women and children, affected people, are not receiving humanitarian assistance due to access constraints that we were unable to resolve. That’s very tough.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

I celebrate a moment whenever we as humanitarian workers reach a location and provide water, medicine, food. That’s what I really like about my job, when I see the end results of our efforts in the eyes of the children, in the health of pregnant women, and so on.

What don’t you enjoy about your job?

When a decision is taken by a single official that adds more challenges to humanitarian access. It’s an individual, not an institution. It’s much easier when the conversation is between institutions, but if a bad decision is taken by a single person then you have to use a lot of informal ways, and it doesn’t necessarily work. That’s what I don’t enjoy; adhoc decisions by individual officials that complicates our work. 

How did you end up in humanitarian aid?

I always had a feeling that working in humanitarian action goes with my personality. From my early days, I wanted to serve people. At university, I participated in unions and societies that were serving students. In fact, I invested a lot of time working with societies that provided services to my colleagues. After my graduation, I was lucky to work with my uncle as a Research Assistant. He’s an expert in international water and he has a huge, big, rich library, and I started to read. I read about the United Nations, sustainability, community participation, and rural development. I decided to join humanitarian organizations. Every day I’d go to the book shop, buy a newspaper, look at job advertisements and apply. I applied for many jobs until ADRA Sudan offered me a position. I think I was lucky.

Tell me about one person or a situation that has had a strong impact on you during your work.

While working with ADRA as a Community Development Officer, my responsibility was to ensure community participation and the sustainability of water and sanitation projects. One of our priorities was to mobilize communities to support the construction of platforms for the drilled water handpumps. We faced situations where some communities objected to construct the platforms.  In one location, the community simply said, “No, we’ll not participate. You’ve been given the money and you’ve taken it so why should we sweat and mix sand and soil and cement?” Of course I hadn’t eaten the money. We were depending on the communities to help. I could have told them that there was no one to do this work, that it was their responsibility, and no one else could it and they were the ones who’d benefit, but I didn’t think it’d have led to the solution I was hoping for. I thought the best thing was to mix the sand and cement, which I started to do. Within ten or fifteen minutes the whole community came and asked me to stop, and they took over. It was the quickest time during which a job was completed. What I want to say is that it’s important to consult and listen to the community, get their advice, and understand their perspectives, and to lead by example.

What wakes you up and what keeps you going?

Hope that my family is successful. Hope that humanitarian access constraints are resolved, am back to that again. That my relationships with my neighbors are strengthened, the hope that my mother enjoys, without her, we as a family are useless. We need to have hope. I like this question because it brings the good side out of all of us. I think we need to work to realise our hopes.

I know you’d like to tell me a story instead of a book or story you’ve read.  Tell me the story. 

First, let me emphasize that fiction stories are extremely important. They describe elements and details in a crisis that we don’t see, and dramatize and romanticize it. That stays with readers. It influences their emotions, and their actions, and that awareness is very important especially to societies that haven’t experienced war. I keep referring to war as a cause of crises because my country suffers from this a lot. We need to mobilize additional people to stand against war, and fiction stories can help with this. 

The story I’d like to share with you was told to us by an old man when I was eight years old. It was about a family practicing agriculture in a conflict affected village. The village of that family was attacked by an armed men and the members of this one family were captured. The father was interrogated by the armed men and asked to give information about the leaders of his community that were supporting the rebels. The father said he’d give up the names if they released his family. While his wife and children were released, he refused to give up their names. After releasing his family, the man said he was happy to die, he couldn’t betray his community, he wasn’t a rat. He was tortured, but he never said a word. 

This is a typical story that happens during war. You may ask me, what’s interesting about this story, and why it remained with me. As a boy, I learned the importance of becoming solid and firm, regardless of temptation, but when I became a humanitarian practitioner and started to dig deeper, I started to wonder what happened to this family, did they separate from each other, did they survive, did they have water, what happened to their farm, did the children become child soldiers, did they stop going to school, would they revenge in future? These questions are very important, and for every single answer you find a particular intervention by humanitarian organizations. What we do, saving lives, providing water, food, medicine, shelter, protection to people in need, to the displaced, whatever they need, reuniting their families. This is why it stayed with me. 

What is your greatest hope for the people affected by humanitarian crises?

To find peace, and when I say peace, I mean comprehensive peace without hate and with resources to enable people to restore their lives. Peace is important in my country and everywhere.

If you were asked for one action that people out there can do help address the causes and consequences of humanitarian crises, what would that be? 

Come together and stand against war everywhere. Let’s be generous. If a crisis is based on a natural disaster, give one cent, one pound, let’s help each other. If sisters and brothers, in another part of the world are affected, I should have an obligation here in Sudan to help and support in anyway, and there are so many ways to support. Let’s come together, let’s share humanity, let’s unite for a better world. We live once on this planet, we need to enjoy our moments, whatever happens to me affects you.

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