that are owned and managed by men, none of the businesses these women had started relied on foreign investors for start-up capital.<sup>23</sup> The challenges that aspiring and successful businesswomen encounter are further illustrated by the qualitative work that was undertaken for this report. A female youth from Khartoum who had a university degree and was the owner of a small pastry shop said, “Because my capital wasn’t enough, so I took things from home and my mother helped me ... because I have no experience in this field my big brother did everything related to taxes and rent fees and everything, he is responsible about the legal papers ... they were supporting me, my mother, brother and my father were very supporting, and my father supported me financially too, thanks God for having them and their support.” The KIIs and FGDs revealed that youth face many of the same struggles as women. For example, a male youth from Nyala who had a university degree and was the owner of a medium-size agricultural business said, “Sometimes you don’t have possibilities, you can take loans from banks and sometimes when you need money you don’t find loan in the suitable time for you.”

# **Women in agriculture tend to earn less than men and face similar challenges as female entrepreneurs**

Sudan is rich in arable land and water, with two-thirds of the population living in rural areas and a large share of the population engaged in agricultural activities. Before the separation of South Sudan from Sudan in July 2011, Sudan had “7% of [Africa’s] cropland, 13% of its pastureland and 10% of its livestock” (Ibnouf 2011, 216). The idea of turning Sudan into the Middle East’s or Africa’s ‘breadbasket’ has been repeatedly proposed by Sudanese leaders, regional leaders, and development organizations for the last 50 years. However, since Sudan experienced rapid nationalization followed by rapid privatization and has been subject to repeated droughts, desertification, famines, and conflict, the dream of turning Sudan into the region’s breadbasket has yet to be achieved (Calkins et al. 2015; Verhoeven 2015). In contrast to many of its African neighbors which have transitioned, to one degree or another, from agriculture to industry and services, much of Sudan’s labor force continues to be engaged in agriculture. As mentioned earlier in this report, the share of the employed population working in agriculture increased between 2011 and 2014, with almost half of the labor force employed in agriculture in 2014. The data also show a significant gender dimension, with 60 percent of female labor force participation being in agriculture, compared to 39 percent of male labor force participation. This is even more pronounced in rural areas where four out of every five women working outside the home are engaged in agriculture (World Bank 2019c).

Despite the large share of women in Sudan’s agricultural labor force, female farmers generally earn less than male farmers for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, the smaller size of their plots. A multicountry study in Africa found that women farmers not only face individual-level obstacles that limit their access to inputs and impede their productivity, but they also face a complex set of restrictive social norms, market failures, and regulatory or institutional constraints that affect policies and programs intended to support women farmers (O’Sullivan et al. 2014). In 1992, the Government of Sudan launched a Ten Year Comprehensive National Strategy that aimed, among other things, to increase the country’s

> 23 (Musa 2012) This is aligned with the findings from the 2014 Enterprise Survey, where 54 percent of female-led firms had majority private domestic ownership compared to 35 percent of male-led firms.

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