Sudan

Overall View

Sudan is the largest country in Africa, and has a population of 33 million of which 7 million live in the South. It ranked 139th out of 177 countries in 2003 on the Human Development Index, with particularly low scores on life expectancy and literacy.

The country has been greatly affected by decades of external tensions, international sanctions, civil war and strife, and a number of natural disasters (mainly drought), that have caused mass internal displacements and emigration (entailing, among others, a serious brain drain), famine and widespread diseases. The 2005 North-South Peace Agreement, that has allowed forming a Government of National Unity, offers hope; although in the Western region of Darfur, the military and human situation remains critical.

The Sudanese economy rests heavily on agriculture, accounting for 40% of GDP in 2004 and, since 1999, an oil industry based in the South. Grasping the real economic, employment and poverty situation of the country, though, is hampered by the paucity of data, that only allows an impressionistic view. GDP annual growth was estimated at 6% in 2003 and on an upward trend. Its impact on welfare and development, though, is limited by population growth and disparities between geographical areas. Estimates set 2003 unemployment rates at 19%. This figure is deceptive, though, as it does not take into account the masses of internally displaced, and the under-employed. The high number of poor persons, and of those in absolute poverty (those who cannot afford to buy a basic foods) that are thought to reach 66% of the population in rural areas, 33% in urban areas, and 90% in the war-affected South, suggests that few can afford to be unemployed. This is corroborated by estimates that around 80% of the workforce operates in the informal economy.

Peace building, reconstructing the vast war-affected areas, and reintegrating the millions of internally displaced persons, returning refugees and demobilized soldiers into the country’s socio-economic fabric will be major challenge; along with resolving deep-seated welfare and development disparities between regions and rural and urban areas, human resource development, and employment creation through MSEs

Activities

• Labour standards

  • Training of judges, lawyers and academics for improving ILS implementation.

• Employment

  • Supporting the formulation of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
  • Supporting the development of a national vocational training system
  • Upgrading human resources
  • Strengthening entrepreneurship culture, through cooperation with a network of major stakeholders in MSEs development: training trainers specialized in entrepreneurship and management training, using ILO training tools for micro- and small entrepreneurs
  • Developing a programme for the recovery and reconstucition of war-affected areas in South Sudan, and the reintegration of ex-combatants, refugees, IDPs and other war-affected groups.

• Social protection

  • Capacity building of safety in the use of chemicals in agriculture, through promotional workshops on ILO Conventions and tools.