Business, State and economy: cotton and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1919-1939

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Periodical article

Title:	Business, State and economy: cotton and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1919-1939
Author:	Mollan, Simon
Year:	2008
Periodical:	African Economic History (ISSN 0145-2258)
Volume:	36
Pages:	95-123
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	cotton agricultural projects economic recession colonial period
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/41501704
Abstract:	Economic development in Sudan during the Condominium period (1899-1956) was not widespread. The developmental effort was narrowly concentrated on cotton growing in the Gezira Region. At the time of the opening of the Gezira Scheme in the mid-1920s, there was a positive optimism among officials and luminaries in the country, but what went wrong was the Great Depression. A severe downturn in the world cotton market compounded by the coincidental failure of the cotton crop in 1930/1931 was an economic disaster for Sudan. To explain the impact of this economic calamity on Sudan's economy, this article establishes the economic trajectory of the interwar period, in particular focusing on the effects of the Depression on cotton. It examines the three partners in the Gezira Scheme - the Sudan Plantations Syndicate, the tenant farmers, and the Sudan government. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]