Quiet Discussions on Hot Issues

Moawia M. Ahmed
While Sudan’s media landscape remains largely focused on the war’s latest developments, political tensions, and the struggle over legitimacy, a different and quieter conversation is taking place in the background. Sudanese academics, experts, doctors, economists, engineers, researchers and intellectuals, both inside the country and abroad, are discussing reconstruction, the public sector, higher education, scientific research, healthcare, heritage and governance.

These discussions have found a space on digital platforms, particularly YouTube, where they can reach a wider audience. What can be observed is not a single institution or organized project, but rather the emerging outlines of a broad, informal network of ideas and expertise converging around one question: What will Sudan do when the war is over?

What is particularly striking is not simply the number of seminars being held, but the changing question itself. During the first years of the war, 2023 and 2024, public debate was dominated by attempts to explain the causes of the conflict, the balance of power, the war’s impact on the state and society, and its regional and international dimensions. In more recent years, however, a growing share of these discussions appears to be turning toward another question: How can the state and society be rebuilt after the war?

One example is a seminar on the book Rebuilding Sudan, edited by Professor Ahmed El-Safi, Dr. Gerald Makan and Dr. Abdelbagi Ahmed, with contributions from a large number of experts in different fields. The book offers a multidisciplinary approach to reconstruction, moving beyond the idea that rebuilding simply means restoring physical infrastructure.

In a similar vein, journalist Hadi Habbani hosted a seminar on Dr. Abdelmonem Khalifa’s book Public Sector in the Sudan, which lasted more than two hours. The book examines the history and development of Sudan’s public sector and its role in economic and social development. It is based on an original academic study the author completed during his postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom, which was later revived and updated.

Such studies are particularly relevant given the role the public sector may be expected to play in post-war reconstruction. The book examines, among other issues, the absence of clear objectives and the resulting overlap of responsibilities, weaknesses in evaluating institutional and project performance, and the limitations of relying solely on commercial profitability as a measure of performance. It also explores the reasons behind the expansion of the public sector, from the Gezira Scheme to the nationalisation policies of the 1970s, and proposes ideas for redefining the objectives of the public sector, improving performance evaluation and strengthening institutional capacity.

This activity is not limited to Sudanese seminars or individual platforms. In 2026, for example, the Sudan Reconstruction Forum was hosted by the Arab British Chamber of Commerce in London. Another initiative was the ten-week seminar series The Struggle for Higher Education and Scientific Research in Sudan at War, which examined the state of higher education and scientific research during the conflict. Other international events, including the Key for Africas Security lecture in Vienna, have addressed the humanitarian catastrophe and the prospects for reconstruction.

Broadly speaking, three types of platforms can be identified in this emerging discussion: academic and research platforms offering specialised analysis of the crisis and its economic and political dimensions; discussion-based platforms hosting Sudanese and international experts; and political and analytical platforms that address the future and possible reconstruction alongside the ongoing conflict.

This activity reveals two parallel tracks: one focused on analysing the crisis, and another on planning for what comes after it. As academics, professionals and specialists become more involved, the discussions are moving beyond describing the destruction toward examining the institutions and sectors that will need to be rebuilt, and how they might be managed, financed and developed.

The phenomenon carries an important message. War may have destroyed institutions and infrastructure and scattered communities, but it has not completely halted Sudanese capacity to think about the future. Experts inside Sudan and across the diaspora remain engaged with their country’s challenges and continue to contribute knowledge and expertise. At the same time, a growing body of studies, proposals and visions is emerging that could potentially be drawn upon when conditions become more favourable.

Yet this encouraging picture requires some caution. These efforts do not share a unified methodology and are not, so far, subject to a common process of critical assessment. They may also remain confined to academic and professional circles unless mechanisms are created for networking and cooperation, participation is broadened, and ideas are translated into practical and implementable plans.

Even so, what remains striking is that the war has not killed Sudanese people’s ability to think about tomorrow. Perhaps this quiet activity, away from the noise of politics and the battlefield, represents one of the less visible forms of resistance: preserving the idea of the state and thinking about how it might be rebuilt before the opportunity to rebuild it on the ground finally arrives.