Sudan Needs $7.5 Billion for Peace Implementation

October 8, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese government said that the implementation of peace agreements requires huge resources amounting to at least $ 7.5 billion.

Economy Minister Heba Mohamed Ali In line with a peace agreement signed with the armed groups, the government is committed to allocating a huge amount of money for the development of the war-affected regions.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Finance organized a workshop to discuss "Peace Development Projects" with the participation of most of the federal ministers, some state governors and state government secretaries, to prepare the implementation matrix of these projects.

In her remarks to the meeting, the Finance Minister Heba Mohamed Ali stressed on the need to unify the matrix and requested the states and federal ministries to determine the projects of utmost and urgent importance to be implemented in the first stage, such as the return of displaced persons to their areas, in addition to medium and long-term projects.

"The implementation of peace requirements need huge resources amounting to at least $ 7.5 billion, which must be provided over the next ten years," Mohamed Ali further said.

She pointed out that the agreement contains several protocols. Under the protocol of wealth sharing, the Ministry of Finance has to ensure that its economic policies - in the areas of the general budget, economic planning, investment and international cooperation - will be compatible with the goals and spirit of the peace agreement.

Under the peace agreement, the government is committed to paying $300 million to the Darfur Development and Reconstruction Commission immediately after the signing of the peace agreement. Also, it should annually pay $1.3 billion over ten years to the Peace and Development Support Fund in Darfur.

Similar funds should be allocated to the other regions in the southern and eastern part of the country.

The minister pointed out that the economic planning includes balancing national and state revenues and diversifying their sources, establishing development funds, improving natural resource management, ensuring the national character of development projects, grants and loans, and updating reconstruction and development studies to achieve positive discrimination in the less developed regions.

One of the main drivers of the conflict in Sudan is the systematic economic and development marginalization, especially in the countryside, and the failure to distribute the country’s wealth in a fairway.

The achievement of sustainable peace all over Sudan depends entirely on addressing the fundamental problems that caused wars and conflicts, the minister stressed.

She said that the role of the Ministry of Finance will not be limited to the planning but includes mobilizing resources through the general budget, financial, regional and international institutions, friends and partners of Sudan, in addition to coordination with the United Nations Integrated Transition Support Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS).

Further, "the finance ministry has to improve the investment environment to attract the local and international private sector to work in the less developed regions," she concluded.

(ST)