Freedom, Peace, and Justice: A New Paradigm for the Sudanese Health System After Sudan’s 2019 Uprising

This study demonstrates that health and its system are dynamic and interlinked with social and economic sectors. The paper calls for reading health and its system beyond the standard economic development lens. Optimizing the health system legitimizes the entire state and is an essential pillar for state- and democracy-building in Sudan's transition and path ahead. The paper describes the current health system within the Sudan transition and dives into the historical background of the changes over time. It sheds light on the perpetuated gaps with highlights and analyses of the possible determinant factors and how to reform the health system within and as a component of state-building. It also examines various alternatives for addressing the health system crisis in Sudan in light of the current political instability and the lack of basic health service provision needs. Following a careful analysis, a set of context-specific recommendations with short- and long-term effects are provided. These recommendations are strategic and operational in nature. The strategic recommendations are political and developmental, focusing on developing policies that address the emergency and crisis at a national level with the involvement of all local sectors. The operational recommendations propose how implementation can occur most effectively. These sets of recommendations must operate in harmony and in close communication with the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health and other sectors that impact health by their nature, with the aim to generate results that are aligned with Sudan’s overall economic and developmental models of reforms to revitalize the health system and restore its functions comprehensively. The unified intellectual thread covering those topics emerges during reading.