Displaced by war, young Sudanese turn to entrepeneurship to survive

Yousra Hussein’s career was on the rise. She had graduated with a degree in medical laboratory sciences from Nahda College in 2022, and then began developing a women’s empowerment initiative – Golden Women – in the western Sudanese city of Nyala, in the same year.

The initiative organised psychosocial support sessions and training workshops in marketing and entrepreneurship that helped more than 70 women. Yousra wanted to help young women like her seeking work, but often lacking the experience and practical skills needed to pursue available opportunities.

Things were going well until Sudan’s civil war began in April 2023, upending her life. By June, Yousra and her family fled Nyala to Sennar, a city in central Sudan that she had never visited.

“Before the war, I was ambitious and had many dreams,” Yousra told Al Jazeera. “I started from zero in Sennar, without work experience or connections.”

Unable to find work in a city that she was unfamiliar with, she began offering nail services from home, charging the equivalent of about $10 to $15, and saving what she could to help her family.

Then, fighting between the two belligerents in Sudan’s war – the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces – spread to Sennar in mid-2024, forcing Yousra and her family to flee once again, this time to Kassala in eastern Sudan.

Once again, Yousra was starting from scratch, and Sudan’s economy was collapsing as a result of the war. With few jobs available, and the growing need Yousra saw for women to earn money to support their families, she has resurrected her Golden Women initiative.

But while she has been able to raise some income through the initiative, funding remains a major obstacle. Yousra said young Sudanese entrepreneurs have limited access to skills training and institutional support, as well as struggling with bank requirements for guarantees that many cannot provide. She also pointed to complex registration procedures and taxes as barriers to establishing and sustaining a business.

Yousra’s experiences reflect a wider collapse in jobs and livelihoods.

In a 2024 joint report by the United Nations Development Fund and the International Food Policy Research Institute, 31 percent of the 3,000 urban households surveyed had been displaced, while the share reporting no employment or income rose from 1.6 percent before the war to about 18 percent by the time of the survey. Full-time employment also fell by half.

The World Bank, meanwhile, estimates that even as the economy grew modestly last year, with the government attempting to stabilise the areas of Sudan under its control, the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty rose from 33 percent in 2022 to 59 percent in 2025.

For young people whose education and livelihoods have been disrupted, the shrinking labour market has pushed some towards entrepreneurship and informal work as they search for ways to support themselves and their families, but they may not have the skills or experience to go into business for themselves.

International and government-backed programmes have been initiated to help some Sudanese develop the skills that they’ll need to run businesses.

The International Labour Organization said in May that its i-UPSHIFT programme had reached 500 young people in Kassala, providing entrepreneurship training, mentorship, and business incubation. Thirty-eight youth-led teams – involving 160 participants, including 66 internally displaced people – went on to pitch business and social-enterprise ideas.

Sudan’s Ministry of Youth and Sports says it has also promoted vocational training and youth-led projects. Minister Ahmed Adam Ahmed told Al Jazeera that two youth conferences had been held in Atbara and Kassala in an attempt to understand the views and aspirations of young people, as part of an effort to equip young people with practical skills that could help them earn an income.

Ahmed explained that one of the first conference’s outcomes was a proposed industrial city in River Nile State intended to support youth-led enterprises.

“Projects were also directed towards implementation in states considered safe, with some already under way,” Ahmed said. “The second conference in Kassala focused on practical applications and innovation, particularly artificial intelligence and the use of agricultural waste.”

The struggle to earn a living after displacement affects many Sudanese. Mahira, a 30-year-old visual artist who did not wish to give her full name, moved to Port Sudan after her home in Khartoum was damaged during the war.

She now paints decorative pieces and murals, earning about 1 million Sudanese pounds ($130 at parallel market exchange rates) to help support her husband and son, but has worked a variety of jobs since being displaced.

Before the war, she graduated with a degree in French and completed a diploma in fine arts, both from Sudan University of Science and Technology.

“Since the war began, my main concern has been finding any income, no matter how much, to meet my family’s daily needs, despite how difficult it has been to find opportunities and funding,” she told Al Jazeera.

Mahira initially took on several jobs in Port Sudan, including making soap, applying henna and makeup, and styling clothes. She then began working in home decoration after she volunteered to paint the walls of a woman’s house in the Salbouna neighbourhood.

“Everyone was surprised by my skills in decorating and beautifying homes,” she said. “After that, requests started coming from other residents in the neighbourhood asking me to paint and decorate their homes.”

She later turned to more of her artistic work, conducting workshops on concrete art – an art form that uses cement-based materials to create decorative and artistic pieces – and teaching traditional dance at shelters. She worked with nongovernmental organisations running psychosocial support and skills-training programmes for displaced people.

Mahira now hopes to stage an exhibition featuring paintings that challenge hate speech and promote peaceful coexistence, while also giving her a way to market her work and build a more sustainable income.

At the same time, the exhibition would cost at least 8 million Sudanese pounds ($1,000), but Mahira says she has no savings and earns only about 1 million pounds per month. And yet, Mahira is still optimistic that she can raise the funds, and believes in the benefits the exhibition will bring – not just to herself.

“We need to promote peace and peaceful coexistence in Sudan, because the war has affected society and fuelled hate speech based on ethnic and tribal identity,” she told Al Jazeera.