Working Paper

Explaining Sudan’s Economic Growth Performance

“The paper is composed of twelve sections. Section 2 gives a quick historical background to the economy of the country, while Section 3 looks at the growth record of the country in terms of the chosen periods as well as in terms of the half-decades used in the methodology papers by Ndulu and O’Connell (2000). The development transformation experience of the country given its growth performance is the focus of Section (4), and Section 5 deals with politics and growth in terms of political parties (reporting a political polarization index based on election results), the trade union movement and institutions. In Section 6 we turn to policy and growth. Sections 7, 8 and 9 deal, respectively, with markets, education and the civil war. Section 10 investigates the distributional and poverty implications of the growth process and Section 11 deals with the effect of oil on the growth performance of the economy. The final section (12) provides a summary in an attempt to answer the three questions posed above as to the “what, why and how” of growth in Sudan.”