Sudan's Economic Collapse

Decades of Economic Mismanagement

Sudan's economy has been in decline for most of its independent history, but the trajectory accelerated sharply in the 2010s. The Bashir regime ran the economy as a patronage system: military-linked companies dominated key sectors, corruption was endemic, and economic policy served regime survival rather than development. Agriculture, which employs the majority of Sudanese, received minimal investment despite Sudan's enormous agricultural potential.

US sanctions, first imposed in 1997 and tightened over the following decades, cut Sudan off from the global financial system. Sudanese banks could not conduct dollar transactions, foreign investment dried up, and the country was excluded from debt relief programs available to other developing nations. Even after sanctions were partially lifted in 2017 and Sudan was removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list in 2020, the structural damage to the financial system and investor confidence persisted.

The Post-Secession Fiscal Crisis

South Sudan's independence in 2011 was an economic earthquake. Sudan lost approximately 75% of its oil production and around 60% of its fiscal revenues overnight. The government responded by printing money, triggering inflation that reached 60% by 2018 — before the revolution — and continued accelerating. By 2021, inflation had exceeded 350%, and the Sudanese pound had lost more than 90% of its value.

Ordinary Sudanese bore the brunt. Bread prices — a politically sensitive indicator in Sudan — tripled in late 2018, directly triggering the protests that became the 2019 revolution. Fuel shortages became chronic. The middle class was effectively wiped out as savings became worthless. Government employees, including doctors and teachers, saw their real wages collapse to levels insufficient to feed their families.

The transitional government that followed Bashir's fall attempted economic reforms, including a managed float of the currency and subsidy reductions agreed with the IMF. But these reforms, while necessary, caused short-term pain — fuel and bread prices rose further — and the government had neither the time nor the stability to see them through.

The 2023 War: Economic Annihilation

The 2023 war destroyed what remained of Sudan's formal economy. Khartoum, which accounted for a disproportionate share of economic activity, became a battlefield. Banks were looted. Factories were damaged or seized. Markets shut down. The central bank split — with competing operations in Port Sudan (SAF-controlled) and areas under RSF influence — effectively fragmenting the national financial system.

Agricultural production collapsed as farmers fled their land and transportation networks broke down. The UN warned that over 18 million people faced acute food insecurity by late 2023, with famine conditions emerging in parts of Darfur and Kordofan. Sudan, a country with some of the most fertile land in Africa, was experiencing hunger on a catastrophic scale — not because of drought, but because war had destroyed the systems that produce and distribute food.