Sudan's Future between Catastrophic Conflict and Peaceful Renaissance Growth Trajectories: Long-term Growth Model Simulations

Unfortunately, the worst is still to come should it escalate into a large scale long-duration ethnic war. We show in this paper that this is a distinct possibility in view of the country’s highly fractionalized society. Using a Long-term Growth Model for Sudan, we find that the country could lose more than $2.2 trillion relative to a modest counterfactual peacetime scenario with a 4% annual growth rate. Realization of the conflict scenario could very well pose an existential threat for the country and its territorial integrity. Ending this war before it scales up and building sustainable peace is an absolute imperative for Sudan that requires a robust political settlement, leading to a transformative civil-democratic transition. Given the war-ravaged social capital and diminished domestic capabilities, sustainable peacebuilding requires a multi-dimensional UNRegional peacekeeping operation for Sudan, guided by a broad civilian democratic coalition. While UN missions could help improve the “quality” of peace building, longer-term sustainability requires sustained, transformative, broad-based economic growth. The emerging political order, therefore, should be accountable for achieving development and prosperity, not just majorities in the electoral competition. Under such developmental democratic civil peace, we predict “miracle” growth for Sudan. In an era of relocalization and concerns about food security, the vast Sudanese agricultural resource base provides a magnet for inward FDI flows that will help deliver the envisaged growth.