The Face of Truth: Employment as a Tool for Security and Political Stability

Ibrahim Shaglawi

In post-war countries, success is tested by the state’s ability to extend security and to fill the social vacuum through the creation of job opportunities that integrate people into a productive cycle, preventing the return of violence and laying the foundations for sustainable peace and genuine state-building.

The fundamental flaw in post-war approaches lies in separating security from development, as if security is built first by force and economic policies are appended later. Yet historical experience shows that security detached from people’s lived reality quickly turns into a burden on the state, while a paralyzed economy becomes an obstacle. A state that does not produce may rule temporarily, but it does not achieve political stability.

This equation cannot be understood in Sudan without recalling the context that preceded the war. The period before April 15, 2023 was saturated with accumulated social and political grievances, foremost among them youth unemployment, the absence of fairness in employment opportunities, and the closing of horizons before an entire generation that found itself outside the equation of the state and the economy. This social grievance turned into protest energy and, alongside greed for resources, foreign interventions, and conspiratorial schemes, contributed to creating a security fluidity that was later exploited in the slide from protest to war following the failure of the coup by the Rapid Support Forces militia and its local and regional backers.

The aim here is not to reduce the war to livelihood causes alone, but to point out that the fragility of the social structure, and the existence of a wide youth bloc without work and without prospects, provided the ideal environment for infiltrating the political and security scene. In this case, unemployment was not merely an economic phenomenon; it turned into political fuel that made the street prone to ignition and the state less capable of preventive control.

Accordingly, the return of the government to Khartoum acquires its true meaning when read from the angle of both social and security challenges. Rebuilding the political and security center is taking place amid societal exhaustion left by a war that disrupted production, cut supply chains, and pushed millions out of the labor market. This disruption not only weakens the economy, but also reproduces the rupture between citizen and state, and empties security stability of its political substance.

From here, work becomes a mechanism for political reintegration through the economy. It is the tool that moves the individual from a position of receiving to one of partnership in stability. The working citizen becomes a party to the security equation, not merely its subject, while unemployment—especially among youth—turns into a security threat that produces susceptibility to extremism, disorder, involvement in violence and crime, or complete withdrawal from life.

The danger of this equation is compounded in Sudan by the collapse of the “everyday life economy,” the informal sector that historically constituted the first line of social defense against disintegration. Its collapse deprived the state of a tool of stability and left a vacuum that neither security measures nor limited government jobs could fill. Security, no matter how disciplined, cannot alone compensate for the absence of markets, work, and regular income.

Thus, employing youth becomes not only a developmental option, but a security and political necessity.

Reconstruction, if not designed as a project to absorb youth, risks reproducing the same conditions that preceded the war, even if in a calmer context. Hence the need for targeted employment policies that place youth at the center—not the margins—of the recovery process and the restoration of security and peace.

Within this framework, the employment file cannot be left to market logic, nor can promises suffice. It becomes necessary to obligate all local and foreign companies participating in reconstruction to allocate no less than 25% of jobs to Sudanese labor at all levels, with mandatory training opportunities for graduates. Employment thus becomes a localization of jobs, alongside a localization of stability, and a direct link between rebuilding stone and rebuilding trust in the state.

Engaging Sudanese in implementation and management positions within reconstruction projects reconnects society to the path of development planning and prevents reconstruction from turning into an economic activity isolated from the social environment. Ignoring this dimension, however, produces a dangerous paradox: cities that are rebuilt, and youth who are re-marginalized—a paradox that paves the way for the return of tension and chaos.

From here, the concept of economic policy in Sudan must be redefined. The issue is not limited to improving macro indicators alone, but to rebuilding the economy as an instrument of social regulation. Policies that focus solely on wages, despite their necessity, remain limited in impact unless matched by expanding the production base and employment opportunities. The government job, in a post-war state, cannot be the general solution, because it reproduces a rentier state rather than a state of production.

Here emerges the importance of shifting from the logic of “managing unemployment” to the logic of “dismantling it.” This requires structural shifts in thinking: transforming localities from revenue-collection units into production platforms; linking reconstruction to employment and training; using public spending as a lever to generate jobs rather than as a consumption tool; and directing international support toward development projects instead of long-term relief programs.

In this context, the 2026 budget gains its political significance from its philosophy. If it remains captive to emergency logic, it will keep the economy in a state of paralysis. But if it turns into a tool for reintegrating the workforce through education, agriculture, and reconstruction, it may represent a genuine turning point. Reconstruction is not the rebuilding of stone, but the reactivation of people—and this is politics in its true meaning.

In conclusion, from the perspective of #The_Face_of_Truth, job opportunities are not a social file subordinate to security and political stability, but one of their central instruments. Sudan does not need only security control that prevents the recurrence of war, but employment policies that close the path that led to it. A state that secures work for its youth fortifies its security and grants its politics a real social base; but a state that rebuilds without fairness in opportunities leaves the causes of its return as a postponed crisis.

Wishing you continued health and well-being.

Thursday, January 8, 2026

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