Published June 9, 2025 — the most current economic assessment of Sudan from the World Bank. Almost two years into the conflict that erupted in April 2023, Sudan is trapped in a deepening crisis.
Key Numbers
| Indicator | Figure |
|---|---|
| GDP contraction 2023 | −29.4% (one of the steepest in modern history) |
| GDP contraction 2024 | −13.5% |
| Extreme poverty (< $2.15/day) | 33% (2022) → 71% (2024) |
| Unemployment | 32% (2022) → 47% (2024) |
| Inflation 2024 | 170% year-on-year |
| Forcibly displaced | 12.9 million — the world’s largest displacement crisis |
| Return to pre-conflict GDP | Not before 2031, even with rapid peace |
What the Report Recommends
The report’s recovery framework rests on three pillars:
Macroeconomic stabilization — resuming the HIPC debt relief process, unifying the official and parallel exchange rates, and ending the subsidy regime that distorts the economy.
Agriculture as the recovery engine — the report dedicates its special focus section entirely to agriculture, arguing it is the only sector with the scale and labour absorption capacity to drive recovery. This means reconstructing irrigation infrastructure, restoring key agricultural roads, and rebuilding access to inputs for farmers.
Trade and investment climate — eliminating tariff manipulation and customs distortions, honouring commitments under the African Continental Free Trade Area, and demilitarizing economic activity to allow productive investment to re-enter.
What the Report Does Not Say
The report does not discuss industrialization. Like every major Western assessment before it, the recovery vision for Sudan is: stabilize → grow agriculture → open markets. The question of what productive industrial structure Sudan should be building over 15–20 years is not asked. This pattern — agriculture as the ceiling, not the floor — is one of the defining gaps in how Western institutions have analyzed Sudan for forty years.