Long road ahead for Sudan debt relief: World Bank

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan needs structural reforms to broaden its economy and encourage private business to reduce a 46 percent poverty rate and qualify for relief on its $35 billion external debt, the World Bank's vice president for Africa said on Thursday.

Obiageli Ezekwesili told Reuters in an interview that Sudan needs to work on reducing poverty through small business and agricultural incentives and developing infrastructure before it can qualify for relief on its debt.

"On the macro fiscal side of things you can't take it away from them that they've actually done some interesting things," Ezekwesili said. "On the structural reform side though they could do a whole lot more."

Since signing the peace deal in 2005 ending Africa's longest civil war, which claimed 2 million lives, Sudan has asked for relief on its debt, which makes Khartoum ineligible for major international loans.

Ezekwesili said Khartoum was not on track to achieve millennium development goals set by the United Nations and must invest in health, education, infrastructure, human development and agriculture to diversify its economy, which depends on oil for 60 percent of its revenues.

Such investment was needed to accelerate any path to relief on Sudan's debt, some of which was racked up by previous governments to propagate the north's war against the south.

A co-founder of anti-corruption agency Transparency International, Ezekwesili, a former government minister in Nigeria, said Sudan should also work equally hard to encourage private local businesses as it did to attract foreign investors.

"How easy is it for a private individual in Sudan to just set up a business and thrive in that business without being tied up in all kinds of rules and procedures?" she said. "How do you create an environment where the average Sudanese wants to pull themselves out of poverty?"