The war has had a catastrophic effect on Sudan's economy. Around two thirds of people are involved in agriculture, but the conflict has driven millions of farmers from their land and devastated supply chains. It's also sent costs skyrocketing. Now everything from fertilizer to gasoline is much more expensive and, as a result, many can't afford food.

Recent research from UNDP has found that in urban areas, full time employment has halved, and one in five households have no income at all.

In the face of such devastation, humanitarian aid can only reach a fraction of those in need and will only be a short-term fix, even for those who receive it.

UNDP's efforts aim to promote widespread self-reliance, such as our projects working with famers to grow more, increasing the supply of food and bringing prices down.

We also help women, youth and other entrepreneurs to start new businesses or expand their operations. By boosting local economies, we increase the purchasing power of families, so they can afford the food in the market, as well as other essentials like medicine.

Farming has never been easy in River Nile State, so Hamid had always used diesel-irrigation systems. But after the war broke out and the Sudanese pound collapsed, he couldn't afford the fuel.

Hamid and the famers near him still harvested crops, but they were smaller, less valuable. All around River Nile, harvests were shrinking, and people were going hungry.

In 2024, with funding from the Republic of Korea, UNDP provided solar-powered irrigation systems for 300 farms in River Nile, including Hamid's. This year, the results have been transformative:

“The availability of water this season has doubled the size of the onion harvest, so each onion is twice as big. We also used less diesel, which saved us a lot of money,” Hamid says.

Mariam was at university when war broke out. The conflict brought her studies to an end.

She returned to the farming village in Gedaref where she grew up and joined an agricultural training programme provided by UNDP with funding from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The programme also set up saving and loan schemes for 500 women that make it possible to borrow funds for investment in new businesses or to expand existing operations.

With these tools, training and financial access, Mariam has been able to provide for herself and her family:

“Our attitudes and outlook on life have changed. We now interact with people we had never engaged with before—we sit together, get to know each other and, most importantly, have household expenses covered through this collective work. If we need anything, the fund supports us,” she says.

Around 75 percent of healthcare facilities have stopped operating since the war began. Hospitals and roadside clinics have been shelled and looted. Drug supplies have been stopped, either because they're too expensive to import or because infrastructure has broken down.

The effect on Sudan's healthcare system has been devastating, and even before the war, children and women faced some of the highest mortality rates in the world.

With funding from the Global Fund, UNDP works with the Federal Ministry of Health to improve healthcare. This includes procuring life-saving medicines for HIV and tuberculosis (TB), as well as diagnostic equipment that can enable faster, better treatment.

We improve warehousing and distribution of medical supplies and train frontline healthcare workers. We have also introduced nine mobile primary healthcare clinics that can reach areas where services are unavailable or where they can no longer meet demand as displaced people arrive fleeing conflict.

When Ibrahem was diagnosed with TB, it came as the latest in a series of shocks. First there was the war. He had to flee his home in Omdurman after a bomb hit his neighbour's house. Then he caught TB from living in the crowded and unhygienic conditions of a displacement centre in Gedaref with nine of his children.

TB is the world's deadliest infectious disease, killing an estimated 1.5 million people every year. Ibrahem was treated with medicine procured by UNDP and provided by Gedaref's TB Centre.

"Although hearing the news of my diagnosis was very painful, I was relieved when they told me that testing and treatment are completely free. Now, I want to make sure my children are healthy, so I’ll have them all tested as well," Ibrahem says.

Little Mohamed, 5 years old, only came in with a fever. His mother brought him to the mobile clinic when it arrived at their gathering site for displaced people in Gedaref City. She assumed he'd get some medicine and they'd go home.

But the team spotted something much more serious, and Mohammed was sent for an operation. Without it, he could have died. Now he and his mother come regularly to the clinic for follow-up treatment.

This is one of nine mobile clinics that UNDP has procured to follow the movements of displaced people. They provide free primary healthcare services — even, in one case, a fully functioning delivery room — in communities where services have been overwhelmed and patients like Mohamed have nowhere else to go.

Local doctor Wail has seen the difference this makes:

"Every time I treat a patient, I see the faces of my own family in theirs. For me, being here and supporting displaced people isn’t just a job — it’s a source of deep fulfilment," he says

Efforts to bring an end to Sudan's war have failed, and there is no sign of a nationwide resolution soon. But at the local level, it's still possible to mediate conflict.

The Kassala region has seen multiple waves of displaced people. There are tensions not just between displaced people and host communities but also among displaced people who have arrived from different places or at different times.

With support from the Peacebuilding Fund, UNDP has worked with young people to combat hate speech and run peacebuilding sessions. We've also set up community-based reconciliation mechanisms and savings groups that bring people from different backgrounds together to pool resources and run small businesses.