Beyond negotiating a multipolar world: Sudan's non-western development cooperation alternative

Sudan's prolonged conflicts (South, East and West) have produced several enduring trajectories that have already shaped its present and will likely shape its future developments. Paradoxically, despite the tenacity of the conflicts and their colossal human and material cost - putting large parts of the country out of food and export crops production - Sudan has been able to maintain steady GDP growth for more than a decade. The stark contrast between the devastation of war and the steady economic growth involves more than Sudan negotiating a multipolar world order. In fact, Sudan has engaged a reconfigured post-Communism unipolar world order, which until the rise of China, India and Brazil was dominated by the United States. The classic notion of bipolarity has given way to an emergent multipolarity, in which non-Western countries (for example, China, India and Brazil) have gained considerable economic leverage. These raw materials-, oil- and minerals-hungry economies have made their presence felt in Africa, in general and in particular Sudan. This has fundamentally changed the geopolitics in which Sudan operates and has led to the operation of fundamentally different trade, economic relations and political cooperation. This chapter argues that while resource-rich economies such as Sudan could have been crippled by economic sanctions imposed under the unipolar world order dominated by the US, this scenario is most unlikely under the current multipolar world order. Sudan, therefore, is reaping the economic opportunities provided by engaging non-Western development cooperation partners, while steadily moving away from negotiating with the West.

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