United Nations Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner speaks to AFP in an interview in the Sudanese capital Khartoum during his visit to the country, on January 29, 2020. – The top UN official warned that the international community would “pay a terrible price” if it fails to help rebuild Sudan’s dilapidated economy as the African country transitions to a civilian rule.
“It is the story in which waiting for too long to actually step in and support this process may have a terrible price.” Months after he was ousted, the economy remains burdened with a foreign debt of more than $60 billion, inflation of about 60 percent, soaring unemployment and the chronic shortage of fuel and foreign currency.
“The international community must recognise how unusual and how extraordinarily helpful this is in a region that is otherwise providing more and more worrying news about political instability and about extremism.”Sudanese officials say there has been a lacklustre response from the international community to the country’s reform process led by new Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a well-respected economist.
Removing Sudan from the blacklist is likely to take time, with Washington seeking assurances that Bashir’s regime is being fully dismantled. “Our role and that of the World Bank, the IMF… is to come up with wiser and smarter advice than simply saying to Sudan ‘Well, you are failing in your reform if you don’t do x or y’,” he said.