Journal Articles

Toward integrated dam assessment: Evaluating multi-dimensional impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Sudan

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile is expected to influence many ecosystem services, such as flood regulation, hydro-electricity production, food supply, and habitat provision, among others. Understanding these impacts (positive and negative) requires a comprehensive evaluation framework. This study develops and applies an integrated simulation framework for assessing the impacts of the GERD on Sudan, focusing on the simultaneous economywide effects of riverine flood hazards, irrigation water supply, hydropower generation, and floodplain-dependent industries, namely traditional fired clay brick production. The simulation framework incorporates three models: a river infrastructure system model, a flood model, and a Computable General Equilibrium Model. Results indicate positive impacts for hydropower generation and flood control, marginal benefits for water supply to existing irrigation, and negative consequences for brick production and the construction sector. Assuming that the GERD starts its long-term operation in 2025, we find an overall positive economic impact on Sudan's Gross Domestic Product in 2025, with an increase of up to just over 0.1%, subject to river flow conditions. Recognizing the differences in impacts across sectors and income groups, the study emphasizes the need for interventions that ameliorate negative effects. While the study captures several impacts, other effects on the environment, recession agriculture, and soil fertility require further investigation. Still, our findings underscore the importance of adopting an integrated simulation approach to dam evaluation, acknowledging the interconnected nature of water and related sectors in national economies.

We need to know the economic impacts of Sudan’s ongoing conflict

The Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for global and regional food security and potential policy responses

This paper analyzes the implications of the Russian-Ukraine war on global and regional food security. We start with a global vulnerability analysis to identify most vulnerable regions and countries. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is particularly vulnerable to trade shocks because of its high food import dependence. Thus, we provide descriptive evidence characterizing how food systems and policies impact vulnerability to the price shock in selected MENA countries: Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen. Within these countries, we show that the crisis will differentially impact poor and non-poor households as well as rural and urban households. Although the absolute level of food insecurity may still be higher in rural areas where larger numbers of poor households are located, urban poor are likely to suffer most because of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and associated hikes in food prices, especially in those countries where social protection and food subsidies are missing. We review lessons from previous food crises and identify actions needed to take (and to avoid) to protect most vulnerable countries and households in the short-term while also highlighting long-term policy options to diversify food, fertilizer and energy production and trade.

Evaluating cereal market (dis)integration in less developed and fragile markets: The case of Sudan

This paper evaluates spatial market integration in cereal markets in Sudan, focusing on wheat and sorghum, two major cereal crops. Sudan’s context provides important insights on the functioning of markets in economies marred by sanctions, conflicts, soaring inflation, and macroeconomic imbalances. We use long-ranging monthly cereal price data and a vector of error-correction cointegration model (VECM) to characterize both short-term and long-term spatial price adjustment across cereal markets. Among the 15 wheat and 18 sorghum markets considered, we can only detect significant spatial market integration among 6 wheat and 11 sorghum markets. Despite some strong spatial market integration among a few neighboring markets, there is no spatial market integration between several markets, including between major wheat consumption and production hotspots. For example, cereal markets in Darfur are not integrated with cereal markets in the rest of the country, despite exhibiting some level of spatial integration within the Darfur region. Finally, we also observe relatively stronger spatial market integration in sorghum markets than in wheat markets. These findings have important policy implications for improving the efficiency of cereal markets in Sudan and other comparable settings.

Monitoring indicators of economic activities in Sudan amidst ongoing conflict using satellite data

Political tensions in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated into an armed conflict on 15 April 2023, and continues to unfold to date. Besides the severe humanitarian catastrophe, the war disrupted access to basic public services and constrained access to markets and continued to trigger considerable scarcity of life-saving goods and services. In this paper, we utilize satellite data (nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration and nightlight intensity) and spatial mapping tools to provide a swift analysis of how the conflict has changed the patterns on economic activity, which are bound to have severe implications on food security in Sudan. We show that immediately after the outbreak of the armed conflict, NO2 concentration and nightlight intensity reduced in those areas affected by the conflict while remaining stable in those areas not directly affected by the conflict. We also demonstrate how these types of remote sensing and remote data collection methods can be deployed to monitor economic activities amidst armed conflicts and similar abrupt crises and guide economic, development and environmental policies.

Stakeholders, institutional challenges and the valuation of wetland ecosystem services in South Sudan: The case of machar marshes and sudd wetlands

Long-term optimization of regional power sector development: Potential for cooperation in the Eastern Nile region?

This paper develops a regional TIMES modelling framework for the electricity sector of the Eastern Nile Basin region, including Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, to assess the potential of energy trading for cross-border collaboration in this rapidly growing sector. Four alternative scenarios are developed for the 2014–2050 period to assess national and regional benefits of alternative energy development strategies. The study finds that electricity trading scenarios out-perform a reference scenario that assumes no energy trading, lowering systems cost by 4.5–7.2%. Total systems costs are lower, even when transmission costs for trade are considered. Costs are also lower with increased generation from renewables compared to investments without regional trade. Investing in renewables has important co-benefits, such as improved energy security and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Supporting energy trade not only reduces systems costs, but can also strengthen cooperation in the region, as reflected in the energy trading efforts of the East African Power Pool and the transboundary collaboration efforts of the Nile Basin Initiative.

Climate change and agriculture in the Sudan: Impact pathways beyond changes in mean rainfall and temperature

Baseline simulation for global wheat production with CIMMYTmega-environment specific cultivars

Enhancing food security in South Sudan: The role of markets and regional trade

Inconsistent diagnosis of acute malnutrition by weight-for-height and mid-upper arm circumference: Contributors in 16 cross-sectional surveys from South Sudan, the Philippines, Chad, and Bangladesh

The two anthropometric indicators of acute malnutrition in children under 5 years, i.e. a Mid-Upper Arm Circumference < 125 mm (MUAC125) or a Weight-for-Height Z-score<−2 (WHZ−2), correlate poorly. We aimed at assessing the contribution of age, sex, stunting (Height-for-Age HAZ<−2), and low sitting-standing height ratio Z-score (SSRZ in the 1st tertile of the study population, called hereafter 'longer legs') to this diagnosis discrepancy. Data from 16 cross-sectional nutritional surveys carried out by Action Against Hunger International in South Sudan, the Philippines, Chad, and Bangladesh fed multilevel, multivariate regression models, with either WHZ−2 or MUAC125 as the dependent variable and age, sex, stunting, and 'longer legs' as the independent ones. We also compared how the performance of MUAC125 and WHZ−2 to detect slim children, i.e. children with a low Weight-for-Age (WAZ<−2) but no linear growth retardation (HAZ≥−2), was modified by the contributors. Overall 23.1 % of the 14,409 children were identified as acutely malnourished by either WHZ−2 or MUAC125, but only 28.5 % of those (949/3,328) were identified by both indicators. Being stunted (+17.8 %; 95 % CI: 14.8 %; 22.8 %), being a female (+16.5 %; 95 % CI: 13.5 %; 19.5 %) and being younger than 24 months (+33.6 %; 95 % CI: 30.4 %; 36.7 %) were factors strongly associated with being detected as malnourished by MUAC125 and not by WHZ−2, whereas having 'longer legs' moderately increased the diagnosis by WHZ−2 (+4.2 %; 95 % CI: 0.7 %; 7.6 %). The sensitivity to detect slim children by MUAC125 was 31.0 % (95 % CI: 26.8 %; 35.2 %) whereas it was 70.6 % (95 % CI: 65.4 %; 75.9 %) for WHZ−2. The sensitivity of MUAC125 was particularly affected by age (57.4 % vs. 18.1 % in children aged < 24 months vs. ≥ 24 months). Specificity was high for both indicators. MUAC125 should not be used as a stand-alone criterion of acute malnutrition given its strong association with age, sex and stunting, and its low sensitivity to detect slim children. Having 'longer legs' moderately increases the diagnosis of acute malnutrition by WHZ−2. Prospective studies are urgently needed to elucidate the clinical and physiological outcomes of the various anthropometric indicators of malnutrition.

Local warming and violent conflict in North and South Sudan

Food aid, external trade and domestic markets implications for food security in Darfur

In the last decade, internal conflict has greatly hindered market transactions across regions of Sudan, especially transactions between Darfur and the rest of Sudan. Food aid has helped to offset not only the absence of commercial inflows of grain, but also reductions in Darfur’s cereal production. This article explores the determinants of cereal prices in Sudan utilising a simple partial equilibrium framework for wheat and sorghum, the country’s two main food staples. We also present econometric evidence on the lack of integration of sorghum markets between Darfur and central Sudan, along with quantitative estimates of the impacts of food aid on market prices in the region. The article concludes with a discussion of national food policy and the paradox of simultaneous commercial exports and large-scale food aid imports of sorghum.