AH Challenge: Stable Sudan

IIRC, Sudan is considered the most unstable country in the world at the moment even though they have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Reasons for the instability can be seen in the military government, the Darfur conflict/genocide, and natural disasters.

Is there anything to be done to make Sudan much more stable than IOTL, or even a regional powerhouse? Would this cause any effects in northeast Africa and the nearby Middle East?
 

Hashasheen

Banned
IIRC, Sudan is considered the most unstable country in the world at the moment even though they have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Reasons for the instability can be seen in the military government, the Darfur conflict/genocide, and natural disasters.

Is there anything to be done to make Sudan much more stable than IOTL, or even a regional powerhouse? Would this cause any effects in northeast Africa and the nearby Middle East?

simple, northern sudan, Darfur and Southern sudan separate, but maintain a EU style federation.
 
Well, since many of the problems with Africa in General and Sudan in particular are tied to the cookie-cutter divisions and lines drawn on a map of the old Scramble for Africa, I'd suspect a major improvement in the situation could be made simply by a more farsighted colonial policy of trying to build borders around peoples and language groups rather than latitude and longitude.

I also don't know how anyone would ever decide to do that, so perhaps the case of Sudan would involve a lucky coincidence of some kind: Sudan itself becomes part of Egypt--the Arabs of the northern part are formally part of Egypt. Southern Sudan-Darfur-becomes a separate colony, perhaps known as Darfur or maybe some tie in to ancient Kush or Nubia.

Now, all that's happened here is that the borders were drawn somewhat better than OTL, perhaps some kind of negotiated end to the Mahdist State uprising that put the Arabs in one country and the Nubians in another? Certainly a Possible Option.
 
What if oil is found sooner? Maybe while the British are still involved in the Anglo-Egyptian occupation of Sudan. With the oil discovered and drilled, there will be more pressure from the British and the Americans (post-WWII) to maintain stability. There is still the corruption one would expect from an oil-producing state, but with American backing the regime in power is able to maintain a large security appartus (and a well armed army), one that is able to deal with minority ethnic groups in the west and south of the country. Since the oil wealth was found earlier, a secular military regime is in power, and is willing to use the oil wealth to buy the support of ethnic minority leadership.

Sudan is viewed by Washington as the a key African ally, since its own tight control of its territory denies neighboring countries' rebel groups from using Sudan as a base. Though there is pressure from some to introduce more democracy, in general the regime in power is viewed as the stable strongman standing against ethnic chaos.
 
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