Economic History

Meroe, Sudan — the "Birmingham of Africa" — capital of the Kandakat, 300 BCE to 350 CE The word Kandaka appears in the New Testament. A treasury official travelling from the court of the “Kandake, queen of the Ethiopians” – the Greek word for any land south of Egypt – is described returning from Jerusalem in the Acts of the Apostles. The Roman geographer Strabo wrote about the one-eyed Kandake who led her armies against the legions of Augustus Caesar. Pliny the Elder mentioned the Kandakai in his encyclopaedia. These women were not legendary figures or mythological queens. They were heads of state, military commanders, and economic administrators of one of the most sophisticated civilisations in the ancient world – a civilisation located, for most of its history, in what is now Sudan. ...

1961 1970 1989 2023 Each plan aborted — 1961 Ten Year Plan, 1970 Six Year Plan, 1977 IMF austerity, 1989 coup, 2023 war 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. ...

Iman Sharif · Academic paper · Available in the Kandaka Library Sudan’s first post-independence government was not without ambition. The Ten Year Economic and Social Plan (1961–1970) set targets for agricultural expansion, manufacturing development, infrastructure investment, and social services that reflected a genuine attempt to use independence to build what colonialism had prevented. This paper analyses that plan — its design, its early implementation, and its abandonment by 1965 — as a diagnostic of the structural constraints that have defeated every subsequent Sudanese development programme. ...