Patterns of Economic Growth and Poverty in Sudan

Abstract

This paper reviewing the economic growth in real terms and have overlook to poverty levels and incidence in Sudan. However, more focus is given to per capita income, since the relation is always observed between poverty levels and per capita income growth. Furthermore, the sectoral contribution to GDP growth also reviewed, to see where income concentrates did? And what was the effect on poverty situation? Sudan was expected to achieve high rates of growth after independence due to vast and rich agricultural land, considerable livestock component as well as capable human resources. However, that do not realized for greatest part of the last five decades. After, enjoying moderate rates of growth and economic stability till 1975, Sudan began to enter into deep structural problems. Sudan’s GDP grew at a trend rate of 2% while the population was growing at around 2% per annum. This has resulted in reducing the real per capita GDP by 11% over the fourteen years period affecting the poverty situation in the whole country. Meanwhile, the causes of rural poverty in Sudan are to be found in the sustained urban bias of the development strategies adopted since independence. This tended to neglect the traditional agricultural sector where the vast majority of population lives and is the main source of rural livelihood. This has resulted in high rural to urban migration unaccompanied by either increased productivity in the sector or sufficient urban development to generate the necessary urban employment opportunities, which led to urban poverty in return.