Truth Corner | Dr. Ibrahim Shaglawi People’s Livelihoods

What does the citizen expect from the government while the economic crisis hits him from every direction? Today, the citizen lives on a limited income and unstable sources of livelihood. He is not facing an increase in the price of a single commodity, but rather a whole system of pressures that begins with food, medicine, fuel, and transportation, and extends to education, housing, and basic services.

 As the school year approaches and universities resume their activities, the circle of family obligations expands at a time when the ability to meet them is declining.

The extraordinary Cabinet session, attended by regional governors and state governors, discussed economic issues and people’s livelihoods, at a time when the crisis has become a test of the state’s ability to protect its citizens. The session decided to stop levies, abolish fees on fuel, prevent collections on roads and commodities, and expand discounted sales, cooperatives, and electronic collection. These are steps that could ease the burden, but the real challenge lies in the responsibility for implementation and accountability.

Decisions alone do not protect citizens. Rather, they are protected by clear laws and procedures, the authorities responsible for implementing them, oversight that monitors compliance, and accountability that reaches those who violate them. Therefore, the success of these directives is not measured by the decisions issued, but by what we see in markets, fuel stations, roads, bakeries, and transportation, and by what citizens feel in their daily lives.

Here begins the government’s test. Citizens do not live on statements, but on the impact of decisions on their lives.

 They want to see fees and levies reduced, and transportation and prices stabilized. Fuel does not concern car owners alone; its increase raises the cost of transportation, food, production, agriculture, and services, and ultimately forces citizens to pay the price from their limited incomes. Therefore, the standard is not the number of government decisions, but what has actually changed in people’s lives after those decisions were issued.

The government’s test regarding “people’s livelihoods” also extends to healthcare, services, and bread. The rising cost of treatment and shortages of medicine, along with higher bread prices and declining quality, increase the burdens on Sudanese families and reveal the need for interventions, alongside regulating the market and protecting the quality of essential goods and services.

At the same time, the issue of the return of state employees to their workplaces emerges as another dimension of people’s livelihoods. The Cabinet directed employees to return to their workplaces within 45 days, as part of the effort to restart state institutions after years of war. In principle, restoring the administrative apparatus to normal operations is part of restoring the state itself, as ministries and institutions cannot continue indefinitely to operate under an emergency system or from temporary premises.

But the return is not merely an administrative decision. Thousands of employees were displaced during the war, and some established new lives in other cities or countries, while their children enrolled in schools and universities. Years of displacement exhausted their savings, while the real value of wages declined.

 Some institutions have not yet fully restored their premises, while others operate from alternative buildings or with limited staffing capacity. Therefore, the success of the return requires the necessary conditions: suitable premises, increased wages, means of transportation, basic services, and clear arrangements for those who have been unable to return.

With the school year approaching next week, the burdens on families double between food, fuel, and transportation, as well as tuition fees, books, uniforms, and school transport, while new groups of students move to universities alongside the resumption of university activities. Here, the government’s responsibility becomes clearer: to make education a priority in people’s livelihood policies and to reduce its cost for families, because protecting children’s education is not an additional service, but protection for the future of the new state.

But people’s livelihoods will not stabilize through price management alone. Market stability requires production that compensates for what the country consumes. Here, agriculture becomes the starting point: more food, more jobs, and activity that drives transportation, trade, industry, education, and health. Therefore, the government’s responsibility does not end with controlling prices and reducing levies; rather, it begins with restarting the production cycle and linking it to the market, income, and employment opportunities.

Citizens do not only want to know how the government will confront high prices today, but how it will build an economy that reduces their need for support tomorrow.

Therefore, people’s livelihoods should be transformed from a title for meetings into a government performance indicator. The government is not measured only by its ability to manage state institutions, but also by its ability to make citizens’ lives possible under the most difficult circumstances.

In conclusion, according to #Truth_Corner, the question that should remain before the government is not: What did we discuss in the people’s livelihoods session? Rather: What has changed in people’s livelihoods after the session? There is a distance between a decision and its impact, and this is the distance that citizens cross every day between the fuel station, the market, the school, the university, the workplace, and the hospital. When this distance narrows, the state begins to restore people’s trust; and when it widens, talk about people’s livelihoods becomes merely another title for the crisis.

Wishing you continued health and well-being.

Monday, 6 October 2026

Shglawi55@gmail.com