Editorial illustration generated with Leonardo AI, Lucid Origin. Fictional symbolic scene, not a historical photograph, an engineering design or an approved project.
The problem was never simply the absence of a plan
Sudan does not need to discover the idea of development planning. It needs to confront its own experience of it. The country has produced plans, trained professionals, built infrastructure and announced transformations. The harder question is why useful achievements so often failed to become a durable, inclusive system of prosperity.
That question cannot be answered by choosing a favourite government and treating every other period as an interruption. Nor can it be answered by claiming that nothing was ever accomplished. A dam can generate electricity while its costs and benefits are distributed unfairly. A university can open opportunities while operating without enough staff. An export boom can finance construction without preparing an economy for the loss of its dominant revenue source.
Kandaka’s argument is that Sudan’s recurring failure has been the inability to sustain a coherent development settlement: peace, accountable institutions, realistic financing, maintenance, productive capabilities and a fair distribution of opportunity. Plans matter, but those conditions determine whether a plan survives contact with politics.
Begin with the inheritance, not nostalgia
The colonial inheritance must be assessed with two truths in view. Sudan inherited valuable physical and administrative assets. It also inherited an economy and a geography of public investment shaped around colonial purposes rather than equal citizenship. Describing railways, irrigated agriculture or a professional service is not an endorsement of the political order that produced them.
An honest baseline asks what each institution did, whom it served and whom it excluded. A transport line can move exports efficiently while leaving communities poorly connected to schools, hospitals or domestic markets. An education system can produce outstanding graduates while admitting only a narrow part of society.
The task after independence was therefore larger than preserving inherited institutions. Sudan needed to broaden their reach, change their purpose and build new productive capacities. That required both competent administration and a political agreement about who belonged within the national development project. Celebrating the inheritance without examining exclusion misses the second half of the task.
Independence and Abboud: ambition needs an implementation system
The first civilian period and the military government that followed should be judged by the same questions: were priorities realistic, were resources available, did institutions become more capable, and were benefits shared? Neither electoral legitimacy nor military command can substitute for those tests.
The historical record contains a particularly revealing planning detail. The Ten-Year Plan for 1961–70 was formally adopted in September 1962, after its scheduled beginning. That does not by itself explain its fate, but it illustrates why the administrative life of a plan matters as much as its printed targets. Library of Congress country study.
A credible plan needs more than aggregate investment ambitions. Projects must have prepared designs, realistic procurement, competent managers, operating budgets and a way of detecting failure early. Otherwise a target becomes a promise whose practical preconditions remain somebody else’s problem.
The lesson is not that national ambition was mistaken. It is that ambition should have been matched by a delivery system capable of learning, revising and explaining its decisions publicly.
The ambitions were not confined to concrete. Sudan’s statement to the UN General Assembly on 28 September 1962 described agriculture, social services, transport and industry as parts of the programme. Its projected income gains were targets, not subsequently verified achievements. That distinction should govern how today’s political announcements are read too. UN General Assembly, 1136th plenary meeting, paragraphs 30–37.
Nimeiri and the democratic periods: continuity without immunity
The Nimeiri period raises questions about state-led investment, changing economic direction, borrowing and the relationship between political authority and professional advice. The test is not whether government or business should always lead. It is whether the chosen arrangement could deliver, account for its costs and correct its mistakes.
One concrete institutional break was the 1970 nationalization of banks. The country study also records the subsequent encouragement of foreign banking in 1974. Together these illustrate a changing policy direction, rather than a single consistent model throughout the period. Library of Congress, banking discussion.
Kandaka’s judgment is that abrupt changes in policy are especially damaging when they weaken the institutional memory needed to operate existing assets. New leadership should be able to abandon a bad project, but it should have to explain the evidence. Replacing managers because of allegiance rather than competence turns institutions into prizes rather than instruments of public service.
The democratic periods also deserve scrutiny, not automatic exemption. Coalition bargaining, short political horizons and difficult fiscal choices do not disappear under representative government. The obligation is to create transparent procedures that make those conflicts manageable. Criticism of civilian performance, however, is not a justification for a coup: removing public accountability does not solve the underlying economic problem.
Continuity should mean preserving useful capacity and lawful commitments, not protecting failed policies forever. Reform should mean evidence-based correction, not a purge followed by another launch ceremony.
Bashir and Turabi: distinguish an asset from a development model
The Bashir era, including its association and later rupture with Hassan al-Turabi, should be examined through actual institutions and outcomes rather than treated as one unchanging policy programme. Attribution to particular leaders requires evidence; political responsibility is not a substitute for tracing decisions.
The oil economy demonstrates the central distinction. The World Bank’s country economic memorandum describes the importance of the 1999–2011 oil period and the subsequent need for diversification. The failure to turn a resource windfall into sufficiently broad productive capability is a more useful question than whether individual construction projects were impressive. World Bank diversification assessment.
Real achievements should be acknowledged wherever independently established. They do not cancel out repression, exclusion or destructive conflict. Equally, condemning a political order should not require denying every useful asset built under it. The relevant calculation includes financing, maintenance, displacement, lost alternatives and who gained access—not just a project’s visible size.
Corruption belongs in this analysis as an institutional problem. Weak procurement, undisclosed interests and missing sanctions create opportunities for abuse. Specific allegations must be supported individually; a serious article should not replace investigation with a list of political enemies.
The transition after 2019: an opening is not a completed transformation
The post-2019 transition created an opportunity to reconnect economic reform with public legitimacy. One concrete milestone was the June 2021 HIPC decision point. It began a route towards debt relief; it was not proof that every debt had already disappeared. IMF and World Bank announcement.
Reform also has a household timetable. A policy that promises future stability may impose costs immediately on families with little protection. Technically coherent reforms therefore need credible social support, understandable explanations and mechanisms for correction. Public consent is part of implementation capacity, not an optional communications exercise.
The interruption of peaceful transition and subsequent war reinforce a fundamental point: a development programme cannot be insulated from the political order that finances and protects it. War is development policy in reverse. It destroys assets, interrupts schooling, displaces workers and redirects administrative effort from building shared prosperity towards survival and coercion.
The financing consequences of political rupture were tangible: on 27 October 2021 the World Bank announced that disbursements had been paused that Monday and new operations stopped. This is a dated account of that interruption, not a claim that all later assistance ceased. World Bank statement.
Railways, airlines and universities: learn to retain what we build
Sudan Railways and Sudan Airways should not be reduced to nostalgia about a lost age. Their histories raise practical questions about maintenance, commercial discipline, public-service obligations and professional management. A restored institution must be able to operate safely and sustainably, not merely display a historic name.
For rail, the question is the movement of passengers and freight at reliable cost. For an airline, it is whether routes, fleet decisions, safety oversight and financing support a viable service. Neither deserves unlimited subsidy simply because it symbolizes national pride. Nor should a valuable public capability be dismantled without examining alternatives.
The same principle applies to education. More institutions are not automatically more educational capacity. Laboratories, libraries, technical staff, teaching quality and fair access determine whether enrolment translates into capability. Retaining trained people requires professional opportunity and predictable institutions, not appeals to patriotism alone.
The historical infrastructure assessment remains useful for understanding inherited sector problems, but its figures must not be presented as a current operating inventory. World Bank, 2011 infrastructure assessment.
Rules the next plan must not break
Kandaka proposes a common public scorecard for every government: delivery against promises; full costs and financing; reliability after opening; regional and social inclusion; institutional capability; and environmental and conflict consequences. These are proposed evaluation rules, not fabricated numerical rankings of historical regimes.
The next plan should publish a small set of funded priorities, name responsible institutions, protect maintenance budgets and report delays honestly. Procurement and guarantees should be visible. Independent scrutiny should be able to stop a weak project. States and communities outside the capital should help set priorities rather than receive completed decisions.
Most importantly, the plan must survive a lawful change of government. That requires institutions strong enough to retain knowledge and democratic processes strong enough to change direction without destroying the system itself.
Sudan planned before. The lesson is neither to abandon planning nor to repeat its ceremonies. It is to make development a sustained public obligation: build what is justified, maintain what is useful, distribute opportunity fairly and make failure answerable to citizens.