The suffering of Sudanese is unmistakable. You touch it in the markets and the streets, in people's talk of rising prices, the deterioration of the pound, and the climbing dollar exchange rate; you feel it in the lines of cars waiting for hours at the petrol stations. It is a daily suffering that no longer needs figures to confirm it, even if the figures reveal another side of the crisis in its scale and its depth.
The present war is unprecedented in the ruin it has brought upon the country and in the breadth of the humanitarian and economic suffering it has caused. Levels of development have fallen back, local resources have diminished, and the productive structure of the economy has been thrown out of balance. Factories, facilities, and infrastructure have been disabled or destroyed; institutions and essential services have stopped; investment has declined; national and foreign capital has fled; and large numbers of skilled people and workers have emigrated, weakening productive capacity and increasing dependence on imports.
At the same time, state revenues have fallen sharply and the major productive activities have been damaged, oil and agriculture among them, at a moment when the country faces an acute crisis in essential services, foremost among them electricity- which now paralyzes every aspect of life, and threatens the repair of the industrial sector, the agricultural season, farmers' livelihoods, and the future of a sector that is one of the most important pillars of the Sudanese economy.
Faced with this reality, Sudan needs an urgent economic conference to give shape to serious work and to set out a clear and implementable plan for taking the country out of its present crisis, laying the foundations for repairing the economy and raising it up on sound footings, with clear measures that can be built upon according to plans made up of carefully considered stages.
Such a conference would not be the first since the war broke out. An economic conference was held in Port Sudan in late 2024, and recommendations were issued from it covering questions of production, investment, and resources. But the more important question today is not how many recommendations were issued; it is how many of them found their way to implementation. The crisis has remained, and indeed worsened, and time shows no mercy.
Ideas have been put forward before for raising oil production, making better use of Red Sea resources, developing tourism assets, and drawing on the experience of other countries. Donor conferences have also been held, producing promises most of which never found their way to implementation. Given the international complications and the difficult financial conditions many states face, Sudan should not build its plan on waiting for external support alone- even if international support and the treatment of accumulated debts, which exceed $58 billion by circulating estimates, remain important factors in the path to recovery.
What is required before anything else is solutions arising from within: mobilizing available resources, releasing the role of the private sector, activating a genuine partnership between the public and private sectors, and creating an environment attractive to domestic and foreign investment. This requires removing procedural complications, putting the investment law into practical effect, fighting corruption, limiting capital flight, and creating an environment in which the investor feels security, clarity, and stability of rules.
Sudan also needs to reconsider the state's relationship to the economy. A state that depends heavily on levies and taxes cannot build a productive and sustainable economy. The priority should be widening the base of production, not increasing the burdens on producers and citizens.
Any economic plan must include urgent measures to halt financial waste, rationalize spending, and direct resources toward food, production, and essential services, alongside establishing instruments for financing development- among them a development fund that could draw on community savings and government bonds, under clear and transparent rules addressing the problems that appeared earlier in applying this model at various stages.
Recovery needs a plan of three stages: an immediate one to halt the deterioration and protect production, food, and essential services; a medium-term one to restart the damaged sectors and revive economic activity; and a long-term one to release latent capacities and build a more productive and competitive economy.
And for all the importance of industry, mining, transport, and communications, Sudan's real strength and its economic future lie to a great extent in its agricultural and livestock wealth. Sudan possesses vast agricultural areas, among them an estimated 150 million feddans and more that have not been brought under cultivation, alongside substantial water resources from rivers and rainfall. In a world where food security has become a strategic question for the present and the future, these resources could be transformed from disabled potential into a source of growth, income, and stability.
Sudan does not so much lack resources as it lacks strong and sound management, the right environment, and a plan that moves from paper to reality. What it needs now is not merely a new conference, but continuous national economic work, with defined objectives, clear responsibilities, and mechanisms of implementation.
Great crises are not solved by waiting, and wealth does not produce development unless it is turned into production. Sudan, for all that has befallen it, still possesses resources and capacities enough to make recovery possible- if serious work begins now.
