Since the war broke out in Sudan, we have not heard complaints about economic hardship and living conditions as intense as those we hear today. The Sudanese people, known for their patience, appear to have reached the limits of endurance under mounting financial pressures, soaring inflation, and the relentless rise in the prices of basic goods.
It takes only the customary question, "How are things?" for the conversation to turn immediately to prices, the dollar, and the cost of living. For many, conditions now seem even more difficult than they were in the early days of the war, as the Sudanese pound continues to lose value.
There is no doubt that external factors have added to the economic pressures. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions to international trade, and rising energy and commodity prices have all had far-reaching repercussions for the global economy. Yet these developments have weighed even more heavily on Sudan because of the fragility of its economy as the war enters its fourth year.
Official figures illustrate the scale of the trade imbalance. Gold exports, for example, totaled about $370 million during the first quarter of this year, while fuel imports alone exceeded $697 million over the same period. The gap continues to widen as the cost of imported goods rises and domestic demand grows, while large segments of the productive economy remain paralyzed and many facilities have been out of operation since the war began.
This reality has increased demand for foreign currencies, particularly the US dollar, the principal currency of international trade, pushing the exchange rate above 5,000 Sudanese pounds to the dollar within a short period. As the national currency has continued to depreciate at an accelerating pace, living costs have become the dominant concern in people's daily lives, and public frustration has reached a level the government can no longer ignore.
In response, the Central Bank of Sudan intervened in the foreign exchange market by injecting hard currency in an effort to curb the dollar's rise and slow the depreciation of the Sudanese pound. Such measures may produce a limited short-term effect, but they do not address the underlying causes of the crisis, which has become, alongside the military conflict, one of the gravest challenges facing the state.
The reality is that, from the first day of the war, Sudan has faced not only a military confrontation but also a broad economic war targeting infrastructure, public services, and productive sectors. Entire industrial zones have been reduced to scenes of destruction and looting. The damage has gone far beyond the shutdown of factories to include the dismantling of machinery and its smuggling out of the country. Hospitals have likewise been vandalized and stripped of their equipment, while the agricultural sector has suffered widespread looting and destruction affecting farms, machinery, research centers, and grain storage facilities across several regions. At the same time, the country has witnessed the emigration of skilled professionals and qualified workers, while millions of Sudanese have lost their livelihoods, driving unemployment and poverty to unprecedented levels.
Sudan's current economic crisis is undoubtedly multifaceted. Part of it stems from structural imbalances that predated the war by many years, while another part is a direct consequence of the conflict itself. The war has depleted public resources, reduced government revenues, and imposed additional burdens on the state as it seeks to rehabilitate vital facilities that have remained repeated targets of attack and sabotage. At the same time, the wartime economy has expanded, informal economic activity has grown, and gold smuggling and resource depletion have continued across conflict zones, depriving the public treasury of revenues it urgently needs.
The economic battle is likely to outlast the military one. There is therefore an urgent need for measures to halt the rapid decline of the national currency and ease the burden of rising living costs, while simultaneously developing a comprehensive economic strategy for recovery and reconstruction.
Addressing the crisis, however, cannot be limited to monetary intervention aimed at slowing the dollar's rise. Priority must instead be given to strengthening the economy's real sources of income by tightening oversight of gold exports and preventing smuggling, ensuring export proceeds are channeled through official mechanisms, and adopting more effective measures to encourage remittances from Sudanese abroad through the banking system. Equally urgent is the restoration of productive activity in secure agricultural and industrial areas, since no lasting stability for the national currency can be achieved without expanding production and exports.
At the same time, the state needs to adopt an emergency economic program that balances the demands of war with citizens' basic living needs. The economic battle is not simply one of budgets and statistics; it is a battle to restore the confidence of citizens and investors in the state's ability to manage this critical period and put the country back on the path to recovery and stability.
It may also be necessary to convene a national economic conference to develop a realistic roadmap for overcoming the crisis and to formulate a long-term program for rebuilding the economy on more sustainable and efficient foundations. Sudan will not achieve genuine stability simply because the war ends. It will do so only when it succeeds in overcoming its economic crisis and restoring its capacity to produce and grow.
