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Achieving
the MDGs and Reducing Human Poverty
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Sudan is endowed with rich natural
resources, including oil, and has
the potential to become a major agricultural
producer. And yet it is one of the
least developed countries in the world.
Despite the sanctions, the Sudanese
economy is one of the fastest growing
in the world. The Nominal Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) grew from US $ 9.9 billion
(IMF
1980) to US $ 37 billion (IMF
2006) ; which led to an increase
of growth rates from 7.1 % (2003)
to 11.2 % (estimated for 2007) . The
levels of foreign direct investment
are among Africa’s highest with
over US $3.5 billion in 2006 . They
have been stimulated by the signing
of the CPA and encouraged by policy
reforms, favorable energy and crop
prices, rising urban consumption,
and macroeconomic stability.
However, this rapid growth is not
sufficiently broad-based. The significant
disparities between urban and rural
areas and between regions contributed
to growing inequalities and an increasing
urban informal sector accounting for
more than 60% of GDP . In fact investments
and services are concentrated in and
around Khartoum state and to a lesser
extent Juba, the capital of southern
Sudan. This state of affairs has been
encouraging a rural-urban migration
that might weaken the agricultural
productivity and deepen poverty in
both urban and rural areas.
Poverty is widespread in Sudan. UNDP’s
2006 Human Development Report ranked
the country 141st among 177 countries
. According to a recent joint World
Bank-UNDP mission, about 60-75%
of the population in the North and
90 per cent in the South is estimated
to be living below the poverty line
of less than US $ 1 a day.
The hardest hit by poverty are people
living in rural areas, in particular
women and internally displaced people
(IDPs) who constitute about 12% of
the population . The lack of formal
schooling and high levels of youth
unemployment is turning the potential
of the young generation from an asset
into a challenge for the future. Besides
Khartoum state, the infrastructure
(roads, railways, power and water)
is either non-existent or underdeveloped
across the country.
As a Member State of the United
Nations and in signing the Millennium
Declaration, Sudan has committed itself
to reducing by half the proportion
of people living in extreme poverty,
which is the first of the eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)
- a goal that developing countries
aim to have achieved by 2015. In the
south, the newly established Government
of Southern Sudan (GoSS) has made
the MDGs one of its priorities.
UNDP's support in the area of poverty
reduction focuses on improving the
national capacity to plan and monitor
a comprehensive approach to the reduction
of human and income poverty, in line
with the Millennium Development Goals
and the UN Development Assistance
Framework (UNDAF) for Sudan.
UNDP’s strategic interventions
also aim to develop the capacity of
the Government of National Unity to
manage, coordinate external assistance,
and facilitate aid planning and monitoring
and evaluation mechanisms.
In Southern Sudan, UNDP’s efforts
focus on enhancing economic planning,
budgeting and reporting in Southern
Sudan, in line with the Government
of Southern Sudan’s development
priorities and economic development
needs. UNDP’s assistance also
aims to raise public and government
awareness of the importance of prioritizing
development needs within the overall
framework of the Millennium Development
Goals, and to ensure that the Southern
Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics
and Evaluation is able to advocate
and monitor the MDGs.
In addition to supporting a variety
of income-generating activities to
reduce poverty, and increase food
security and employment in rural Sudan,
including through the Sudan Recovery
and Rehabilitation Programme, UNDP
continues to promote an institutional,
social and economic environment conducive
to poverty reduction.
The following projects
provide detailed information on UNDP’s
interventions for poverty reduction
and progress on the MDGs across the
country:
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