Introduction

Sudan appears to be a country without hope. Whether considered from the economic, the social or the political perspective, it is down at the bottom of the list. In the international wealth scale, measured by gross national product (GNP), it held place 115 at the beginning of the 1990s (UNDP, 1992, p. 128). According to the human development index (HDI), which combines average life expectancy at birth, literacy rate and purchasing power parity, Sudan has been ranked even lower, at position 145 among 160 countries covered by UNDP. Sudan’s political influence in the world is negligible, and internally it has been torn apart by a civil war which has been raging in the country for nearly 30 years. Economic development indicators depict a country with the majority of people depending on agriculture, a low degree of industrialization, a disproportionately large and costly public sector, a high rate of consumer price inflation, and a state budget hit by soaring foreign debt and immense war expenditure. The average annual growth of Sudan’s real gross domestic product (GDP) was 2.5 per cent between 1980 and 1988 (Mattes, 1993b, p. 166), and between 1989 and 1992 it varied from −6 to 9.6 per cent (Wohlmuth, 1994, p. 204; The World Bank 1992). The high variations occurred because agricultural productivity in the ‘traditional’ and mechanized farming sectors depends on the quality of the rainy seasons, and in the irrigated sector it is determined by the uncertain supply and the soaring cost of fuel. The balance-of-payment deficit has also held back GDP growth; at the beginning of the 1990s, import expenditures were about twice as high as the country’s export earnings (Horn of Africa Bulletin, vol. 7 no. 1, Jan.–Feb. 1995). During the last few years, newspapers have been reporting tremendous numbers of displaced people and refugees due to the war, which has become an additional burden for the Sudanese economy and shaken social life throughout the country. Moreover, frequent droughts which at times culminate in famines and ever-growing poverty and misery in towns as well as in the countryside characterize the present situation in Sudan.