The politics of hunger in Sudan

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Contributor(s): Dr Nisrin Elamin | The ongoing war in Sudan has produced the world’s largest humanitarian and hunger crisis—devastating a country that could easily feed itself and its neighbours. As millions of Sudanese face starvation, global markets are also experiencing a surge in the value of key Sudanese commodities such as gold, gum Arabic and livestock that are smuggled out of the country to places like the UAE, Egypt and Kenya. This talk situates Sudan’s current famine within a broader historical context of neoliberal economic restructuring, US aid policies, foreign land investments and resource extractivism. It traces how this history is connected to the current dismantling of rural livelihoods and agricultural infrastructures and to the ongoing resource extraction facilitated by this war. Using food insecurity and hunger as a lens, the talk examines the role of foreign-particularly Gulf-actors in fuelling and sustaining the war.