Sudan Central Bank Launches $33 million Microfinance Push Amid Deep Economic Strain
Sudan’s central bank begins a $33 million microfinance programme to expand financial inclusion for three million people as the wartime economy worsens.
The Central Bank of Sudan has launched a $33 million initiative to expand financing for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as part of its wider plan to revive economic activity during the winter agricultural season.
The new package is intended to pull millions of unbanked Sudanese into the formal financial system.
The initiative, announced with a headline value of SDG 20 billion, translates to about $33.2 million at the official exchange rate. However, at the parallel-market rate, it is equivalent to roughly $5.4 million — illustrating the vast exchange-rate distortions reshaping the economy.
At the launch event, the central bank signed two restricted mudaraba financing contracts worth SDG 1.8 billion — about $3 million — with Azm Microfinance and Al-Ibda Microfinance Bank. The agreements aim to extend credit to small producers in cooperation with the federal Ministry of Finance.
The programme targets three million new beneficiaries, seeks to provide 129,000 new job opportunities, and prioritises rural women and female-headed households who remain largely excluded from formal credit channels.
The initiative comes as Sudan’s banking sector struggles to operate amid a war initiated by the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese Armed Forces. The conflict has caused severe displacement, disrupted agricultural production, and accelerated the collapse of the Sudanese pound. According to data published by the World Food Programme, prices of essential goods have risen several hundred percent in many regions, leaving over 20 million people facing acute food insecurity.
Authorities say the new microfinance plan is also intended to stabilise and expand the country’s microfinance institutions, whose liquidity has been heavily eroded by currency depreciation and wartime disruptions.
Funds will be apportioned across sectors with 50% to agriculture, including crop and livestock production, 30% to small-scale industry and crafts, with an emphasis on basic manufacturing and 20% to trade and services.
Target groups include young entrepreneurs, university graduates, small and medium landholders, workers in agricultural and animal production, female breadwinners, and community-based solidarity groups.
Despite these efforts, Sudan’s financing programmes remain constrained by the currency freefall, the collapse of state revenue, and the difficulty commercial banks face operating across front lines.
International organisations continue to warn that without an end in sight to the war, financial-sector programmes are unlikely to offset the structural damage caused by the RSF.
Reporting by Awad Mustafa