SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Multiple sources – Hamdok vows to rebuild Sudan’s battered economy and secure peace

21/8/19: Multiple sources – Hamdok vows to rebuild Sudan’s battered economy and secure peace

• AFP

• Financial Times, by Tom Wilson

 Sudan's new prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, a seasoned economist, vowed to make peace with Sudan’s rebel factions, and devise an urgent recovery programme addressing the shortages of basic commodities that have plagued Sudan.

 Having built a career in international continental and international organisations, most recently as deputy executive secretary of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa, Hamdok emphasised the need to improve productivity and rebuild the collapsed banking sector.

 Hamdok, who also worked for the African Development and Trade Bank, is credited with shaping policies that spurred Ethiopia's rapid economic growth under late prime minister Meles Zenawi.

 US Congressman Jim McGovern cast doubts on the possibility of securing peace in Sudan, expressing “grave concerns…about whether military and political officials associated with the former regime will prove trustworthy partners given their history of violence, repression, corruption and bad faith.”