Welcome, my friend!

oman, loul and amir in our community bakery

Its been tough for our community this past few day, food is a little bit short for some, but we are trying to be happy here in Darfur. I took a picture here..

Rural poverty in the Sudan

Rural poverty in the Sudan

Poverty in the Sudan is deeply entrenched and is largely rural. In 2002 some 20 million people were living below the poverty line of less than US$1 a day. About 19 million people — 85 per cent of the rural population — are estimated to be living in extreme poverty. Most of them struggle to feed themselves and their families and have little or no access to safe drinking water and health services. The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index ranks Sudan 61st among the 77 least developed nations in the world.

The incidence of poverty varies considerably according to region. In part because economic growth has been unevenly distributed, but also because of the economic and social devastation caused by the conflict in certain parts of the country. Severe inequalities in terms of access to education, sanitation and clean water, to infrastructure and natural resources, income opportunities, justice and political protection exist between regions. For example, health services in southern Sudan only reach about 25 per cent of the population. People living in areas that have been or continue to be affected by drought and conflict – particularly the south and Darfur - are the most vulnerable to poverty.

A rapidly growing population is putting significant pressure on already fragile ecosystems, a situation which has been exacerbated by the displacement of peoples, either by drought or conflict. More than two million have been displaced by the Darfur conflict alone. In addition, erosion, loss of soil fertility and damage to watersheds are affecting resources. Agricultural productivity is decreasing as a result of a lack of technological breakthroughs in rainfed agriculture, and food security and livelihoods are threatened as a result. Malnutrition, tuberculosis and malaria have become rampant. The World Health Organization estimates that 22 per cent of children in the South and Darfur are suffering from acute malnutrition, and the incidence of diarrhoea in children may be as high as 45 per cent in southern Sudan.

Who and where are the Sudan’s rural poor people?

In general, small-scale farmers and herders in the traditional rainfed farming and livestock sectors are more prone to poverty than those in irrigated areas. Those without land are dependent on cash earnings from casual labour, such as collecting firewood and making charcoal. Many depend on humanitarian aid. In 2006 about 2.5 million people in Darfur, and nearly 3 million in the south, east and transitional areas required food assistance.

Isolation is one of the key factors affecting poverty. Settlements located away from main thoroughfares have little or no access to social services and markets. Within rural communities, households without assets and labour power are the poorest – consisting of elderly or disabled people, or households headed by women with young dependants. Women and girls are the most disadvantaged members — less than one third of them have access to education.

Why are the Sudan’s rural people poor?

Inadequate development strategies, slow adaptation to climatic volatility, and erosion of natural resources are the root causes of poverty. These causes have also fuelled the prolonged civil conflicts that have had a devastating effect on the rural population.

Poverty levels in the country are closely linked to the strengths and weaknesses of agricultural productivity. In the 1970s the Sudan, along with many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, began to introduce large-scale mechanized farms and to expand the irrigation sector in a bid to increase crop production, especially cash crops. The new farming systems and land allocation policies displaced subsistence farmers and nomads from their land, and dismantled traditional systems of communal ownership and management that had previously discouraged local conflict. They proved inappropriate for ecologically fragile areas that are much better suited to traditional agricultural methods characterized by livestock herding and the mobility of farmers.

Smallholder farmers are hindered by the limited size of their land holdings, low rates of productivity and an inability to improve their incomes. Because of the lack of rainfall and domestic water supplies, for most farmers the growing season is brief and crop failures are frequent. Pests and disease are problems they are ill-equipped to combat. Existing systems for research and agricultural support are unable to produce and disseminate new technical packages capable of overcoming these problems.

Because they have limited access to credit, distribution and marketing channels, and because of their inadequate technical knowledge and poor skills in production and marketing, farmers find it difficult to break out of the cycle of low productivity and income. Seasonal migration in pursuit of wage labour opportunities on mechanized and irrigated farms and in urban areas has become widespread.

Conflict leads to greater poverty

More than two decades of civil unrest in the Sudan have cost the lives of about 1.5 million people and had a devastating effect on the well-being of the population. Protracted civil conflict in the Sudan generally has its origin in socio-economic inequities caused by neglect of the agricultural sector, misguided land reforms, unfair distribution of resources for development between urban and rural areas and for irrigated and traditional farming, and exclusion of local communities from decision-making. These policies have led to the development of an economy based mainly on export and lease of natural resources, to competition over access to scarce land and water, and to inadequate nation-building.

After decades of internal conflict the Sudan signed a peace agreement in January 2005 and the new Government of National Unity and Government of Southern Sudan have now launched a six-year recovery, peace-building and development plan. International donors have pledged to contribute to the massive costs entailed in reconstructing the country.