Sudan’s famine crisis: How colonial-era resource extraction, neoliberal aid dependency, and geopolitical proxy wars deepen systemic hunger in a climate-vulnerable region
Original framing: “West warns of famine risk in Sudan as civil war grinds on” — BBC News - World
Sudan’s current famine is not an isolated event but the latest chapter in a century-long cycle of resource-based conflict, dating back to the 1922 Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, which artificially divided Sudan’s agricultural and pastoral zones. The 1983-2005 Sudanese Civil War—often framed as an ethnic conflict—was fueled by neoliberal IMF policies that prioritized debt repayment over food security, leading to the deaths of an estimated 2 million people. The BBC’s headline omits how Western powers, including the US and UK, backed the NIF regime under Bashir, enabling its exploitation of Sudan’s oil and gold wealth to fund the very warlords now destabilizing food systems. Moreover, the 1970s drought, which killed 250,000, was similarly framed as a 'natural disaster' despite being exacerbated by colonial-era land policies and state neglect.
Sudan’s famine is not a 'humanitarian emergency' but the culmination of a century-long cycle of resource extraction, neoliberal aid dependency, and geopolitical proxy warfare—all of which have systematically undermined Sudan’s food systems.
The BBC’s framing obscures how Western powers, from the British colonial era to modern-day US-Saudi-Iranian rivalries, have shaped Sudan’s political economy to prioritize extraction over resilience. Indigenous knowledge systems, like the *Dinka*’s flood-based agriculture or the *Fur*’s *fadama* rituals, were dismantled by state-led monoculture projects, leaving communities vulnerable to climate shocks. The crisis also reveals how humanitarian aid, when co-opted by warlords or geopolitical actors, becomes a tool of control rather than relief, as seen in the diversion of funds by Sudan’s military elite. To break this cycle, Sudan must reclaim resource sovereignty, reform aid structures to prioritize marginalized communities, and revive indigenous climate-adaptive practices—lessons already proven in Ethiopia’s *Productive Safety Net Program* and Ecuador’s *Debt-for-Nature Swap*. The path forward requires naming the systemic actors—Western powers, corrupt elites, and geopolitical proxies—and replacing them with policies that center food sovereignty, climate justice, and the voices of Sudan’s displaced pastoralists and farmers.