Africa: Environmental Review - SUDAN

Africa: Environmental Review - SUDAN

Country Selection and Reason for Selection

Sudan has become a point of attention for both United States and China. African Region is rich in minerals and oil reserves due to which both China and United States have been targeting them in different ways in order to increase their presence.

United States from time to time threatens Sudan with embargoes and attack threats. Although they had also supported them in many fronts but had also placed embargoes and restrictions due to promoting terrorism, human trafficking and other ethical issues pertaining to peace of region. On the other hand China has been strengthening its roots in African region by providing them with infrastructure against extraction of natural resources. African countries which do not have sufficient infrastructure have agreed to the terms and conditions. Chinese multinational HUAWEI has been active in Sudan and providing the communication infrastructure to the Sudanese people (Reilly & Na, 2007).

Sudan has been of significant importance to two of the world largest and powerful countries. Due to the immense political and economic significance, Sudan has been chosen for the study.

Population Trends

In the 2008 census of Sudan the population was measured at 30 Million. The population of the metropolitan city of Khartoum is increasing and is amounting at 5.2 Million. Sudan also hosts a refugee population despite being the refugee generating country. According to the survey there have been 315,000 refugees in Sudan. Although Sudan is a refugee generating country, but still there is influx of refugees from surrounding countries which are not stable. The majority of the refugee population came from Chad, Ethiopia and Central African Republic (Casciarri & Ahmed, 2009).

Currency Stability, Unemployment Rates, Overall Economic Situation

Sudan is among the largest countries in Africa and is rich with natural resources. Sudan was an agrarian economy before they started producing and exporting oil in 1999. In the past Sudan has been implementing the macroeconomic reforms supported by the IMF which has included the Staff monitored program which has primary objective of sustainable economic growth and for the maintenance macroeconomic stability within the region. Sudan has performed satisfactorily under those reforms implemented by IMF (Lindsey, 2004).

Economic growth has been witnessed in Sudan 2005 and onwards but it weakened in 2009 because of global economic crisis which had a trickledown effect on Sudanese Economy. The environment was difficult although Sudanese government was able to develop initiatives regarding the fiscal policy and was able to implement structural reforms. During the referendum on southern succession the Sudanese currency depreciated heavily, primarily because the Sudanese people has started hording the foreign currency due to which, Central Banks official rate also lost the value. Sudan secession in July 2011 had placed the economy under pressure. The separation of south Sudan, trade embargoes place by US, corruption and poor planning had lead to decelerating GDP growth and increasing inflation. Sudan went to UN for rescue and then had signed relief agreements with the donors regarding bailout ...