The UN World Food Programme has cut its annual purchases of crops from Sudan to 200,000 tonnes, down from about 400,000 tonnes before the war, a senior UN official said.
Denise Brown, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said the decline reflected the severe disruption caused by the conflict to production, markets and the wider economy.
Speaking at a private-sector economic recovery conference in Khartoum on Monday, Brown said the WFP had previously sourced around 400,000 tonnes of food commodities each year from Sudanese markets.
She called for a shift in focus from emergency relief towards investment and economic recovery, describing the private sector as a key pillar of stability and growth.
Brown said Sudan’s humanitarian response plan had received about $1.2 billion in funding so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in 2025.
The private-sector economic recovery conference opened in Khartoum on Monday with the participation of the Finance Ministry, the Sudanese Employers’ Federation, UN agencies and representatives of countries with investments in Sudan.
Muawiya al-Birair, head of the Sudanese Employers’ Federation, called for new financing channels linking the country’s private sector with regional and international financial institutions.
He said the war had inflicted unprecedented damage on Sudanese businesses and urged authorities to give the private sector a greater role in shaping government economic policy.
