James Thurlow

Economywide impact of Sudan’s conflict and pathways to recovery

Massive human displacement and economic devastation have resulted from Sudan’s ongoing conflict, which erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of February 2, 2026, nearly 12 million people were internally displaced in Sudan, and 4.5 million had sought refuge in neighboring countries (UNHCR 2026). Public services, including health, education, and sanitation, have collapsed in many regions, compounding the humanitarian crisis and further destabilizing the socioeconomic fabric of the country.

Systematic risk profiling: Assessing compounding economic risks in developing countries

This paper presents a systematic risk profiling (SRP) framework to identify the most critical economic risks facing developing countries. Integrating computable general equilibrium (CGE) models with historical shock data and machine-learning tools, we examine how compound shocks affect development outcomes. We apply this method to Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi, simulating thousands of plausible combinations of world price, capital flow, and productivity exogenous shocks and their impacts on countries’ GDP, household consumption, poverty, and undernourishment. The results reveal distinct risk profiles driven by structural differences: Kenya’s primary vulnerability is the volatility in global beverage crop prices, whereas Rwanda and Malawi face the highest risks from domestic root crop and cereal yields, respectively. These findings underscore that vulnerability is not just a function of shock magnitude, but of the specific structure of each economy. Specifically, the high economic volatility in Malawi and Rwanda is driven by the larger role of subsistence agriculture and more volatile domestic yields, whereas Kenya’s agricultural sector is more export-oriented. Unlike standard ad hoc scenario analysis, SRP quantifies both the likelihood of compound events and the relative importance of their drivers. This transparent, scalable framework provides policymakers a new tool to move beyond reactive measures and design targeted, country-specific resilience strategies for an increasingly volatile world.

Promoting regional income equity under structural transformation and climate change: An economywide analysis for Senegal