Ideas

There is a development intervention so well-proven, so cost-effective, and so politically straightforward that it is almost surprising more countries have not made it a universal right. It is not a new technology or a complex financial instrument. It is a meal — a hot lunch, served at school, every day. School feeding programmes are among the most extensively studied policies in development economics. The evidence is unambiguous: they increase school enrollment, reduce dropout rates, improve learning outcomes, and disproportionately benefit girls. When designed well — with food sourced from local farmers — they also serve as agricultural subsidy programmes, injecting cash into rural economies while feeding children in urban and peri-urban schools. The return on investment, according to multiple World Food Programme analyses, averages nine dollars for every one dollar spent. ...

The Nile enters Sudan near Wadi Halfa in the north and flows south through Dongola, Khartoum, Kosti, and Renk before crossing into South Sudan — a journey of nearly 1,850 kilometres. For most of this distance, the river is wide, deep, and navigable. It passes through the heart of the country’s agricultural zones, connects its largest cities, and reaches populations that road infrastructure has never reliably served. Sudan has one of the world’s great natural highways running through the middle of it. For most of the country’s modern history, this highway has been almost entirely unused for freight. ...

In 2011, South Sudan became independent and took with it approximately 75% of Sudan’s oil revenues. The Bashir government, which had built its entire fiscal architecture around oil — funding the military, buying political loyalty, subsidising fuel and bread to suppress urban discontent — suddenly faced a structural collapse. Oil revenues fell from $6 billion annually to under $500 million. The government needed a replacement. It found one underground. Sudan’s gold sector, which had been significant but secondary during the oil years, was rapidly expanded through a combination of artisanal small-scale mining and commercial concessions. By 2012, gold had become Sudan’s largest export earner. By 2014, Sudan was producing approximately 70 tonnes annually, making it the third largest gold producer in Africa after South Africa and Ghana. ...

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton submitted his Report on Manufactures to the United States Congress. Its central argument was that a new nation could not develop by exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. Wealth was created in manufacturing, not agriculture or trade. The role of the state was to protect infant industries until they could compete — through tariffs, subsidies, and public investment. The United States acted on this report. By the end of the 19th century, it had the highest industrial tariffs in the world and the fastest-growing manufacturing sector. ...

In 1946, the British colonial administration commissioned a study of Sudan’s agricultural potential. The findings were unambiguous: Sudan possessed more cultivable land than any country in Africa, fed by the Nile and its tributaries, with a climate capable of producing cotton, sorghum, sesame, groundnuts, gum arabic, fruits, and vegetables at commercial scale. The report concluded that Sudan could, with proper investment, feed not just its own population but much of the African continent and the Arab world. ...