In his book The Developmental Experience in Turkey: How the Justice and Development Party Led Turkey Toward Progress, published by the Nama Center for Research and Studies, Turkish researcher Mehmet Zahid Gül examines four major dimensions of the Turkish experience under the rule of the Justice and Development Party: the intellectual foundations of Turkey’s development, the educational vision underpinning that development, Turkey’s economic advancement, and Turkish diplomacy and foreign policy. At the end of the book, Gül identifies five points that, in his view, represent the most important lessons of the Turkish experience. He regards these five points as the essential conditions for benefiting from that experience. They may be summarized as follows: Renewing the political leadership, involving young people, and placing trust in society and its members, particularly the educated. Entrenching the principle, in the conduct of both government and opposition, that political authority is a means of serving the people rather than a source of personal gain. Making achievement and performance the decisive criteria for evaluating public officials. Promoting institutional work based on clear and carefully developed plans. Ensuring that the benefits of development reach every citizen and every household. To what extent, then, can Sudan benefit from the Turkish experience? To what degree are these conditions present in the Sudanese context? And if they are not yet present, how can they be achieved? First: Renewing Political Leadership, Engaging Youth, and Building Trust in Society, Especially Among the Educated : Statistics indicate that young people constitute approximately 55.8 percent of Sudan’s population. The Arab Human Development Report 2016, entitled Arab Youth and the Prospects for Human Development, called on Arab countries generally to “invest in their youth and empower them to engage in development processes” through “economies that encourage entrepreneurship, political environments that promote effective participation, and social systems that advance equality and combat discrimination.” The question, therefore, is whether these conditions exist in the Sudanese context. The first and most important issue in this regard is young people’s participation in development. To what extent are Sudanese youth actually involved in the country’s development process? Answering this question requires reliable information on the size of the labor force, the proportion of young people within it, the availability of employment opportunities, youth unemployment rates, and other relevant indicators. In reality, estimates of unemployment in Sudan vary considerably. While some sources place the rate at around 19 percent, others claim that it is no lower than 70 percent. Unemployment is, of course, a widespread feature across much of the Arab region. The 2016 Arab Human Development Report noted that although young people make up approximately one-third of the Arab population, their labor-force participation rates remain only about 24 percent among young men and 18 percent among young women, among the lowest rates in the world. Qualified young people often spend long periods waiting for employment, forcing many to enter the informal sector, where they face low wages and poor working conditions. Wasta, or personal connections and favoritism, also plays a major role in allocating the limited jobs available. This forces young people to rely on social networks and family ties, giving those from influential families an advantage over their peers and undermining the principles of social justice and merit. In Sudan, however, the situation is even more complex and potentially more dangerous, because youth unemployment is associated with highly serious social problems. At a seminar held on the sidelines of Sudan’s Second Conference on Combating Drugs in 2016, speakers reported that the preceding four years had witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of drug users, particularly among school and university students. During that period, around 41,000 individuals were arrested, while the relevant authorities seized millions of narcotic pills and tons of heroin and cannabis. Experts and specialists attributed the growth of the phenomenon partly to armed conflict and to rising unemployment among young people. A study conducted by Dr. Nour Al-Huda Mohammed, Director of Al-Tijani Al-Mahi Psychiatric and Neurological Hospital, concluded that 57 percent of drug dealers in Sudan were young people, with more than two-thirds of that group aged between 18 and 44. Dr. Nour Al-Huda also stated that a study she conducted among inmates at Al-Huda Prison in 2014 showed that 28.9 percent used drugs “to fill their free time.” There is no doubt that this represents a tragedy in every sense of the word. The government must therefore act urgently through the following measures:

• Working to strengthen young people’s fundamental capabilities and improve the quality of education by aligning it with labor market needs and accurately identifying the specializations and skills required.
• Working to expand decent employment opportunities for young people, respect their rights and freedoms, and enable their effective participation in formal institutions and in holding those institutions accountable.
• Working to achieve peace and security while strengthening the role of young people in this process, in order to develop their capabilities and expand the opportunities available to them.

This may appear difficult—and indeed it is—but what is even more difficult and dangerous is allowing the current troubling situation to continue, given the serious risks and potentially grave consequences it poses. Turkey did not, of course, begin from exactly the same circumstances. However, this does not mean that such challenges cannot be addressed. Doing so requires coordinated efforts by both government and society, as well as a diverse and integrated set of economic, social, political, educational, and cultural approaches to confront this major challenge effectively. Second: Entrenching the Principle That Public Office Is a Responsibility, Not a Source of Personal Gain :- Politicians often repeat the saying that public office is a burden, not a privilege, yet their behavior frequently contradicts this principle. One of our popular sayings is, “Better authority over one’s own leg than wealth around one’s neck,” reflecting the extent to which some people value power even more than money. A Sudanese politician once joked to me, “I don’t like power—I’m crazy about it.” Despite the widespread presence of Sufi orders in Sudan, and despite the traditional Sufi emphasis on detachment from worldly pleasures and on asceticism in social and economic life, this spirit has not extended to the political and economic spheres. The sheikhs of some of Sudan’s largest Sufi orders are also leaders of some of its largest political parties. Even those who once raised the slogan, “We have not worked for worldly gain,” have, in practice, appeared to be concerned primarily with worldly interests. Entrenching the principle that public authority is not a source of personal gain but a responsibility requires deep, purposeful, and carefully planned political socialization. Such socialization takes a long time, and its effects may not become fully visible until future generations. Nevertheless, there is no alternative to planning for it and beginning the process by promoting a new political and social culture that embodies these values and disseminating it through educational institutions and the various forms of media. What we are referring to here is what is commonly known as political socialization. In this context, some scholars have argued that a social and political system depends on the acceptance of ordinary people just as much as it depends on written laws. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau expressed it, such a system is not merely engraved on marble or bronze, but rather “engraved in the hearts of citizens.” The question, then, is how the political and social system can be engraved in citizens’ hearts in such a way that public authority is regarded as a responsibility rather than a personal prize. There can be little doubt about the Sudanese citizen’s loyalty to the homeland. Yet a form of loyalty that also creates a deep sense that active participation is a civic duty remains a distant aspiration, one that requires careful planning and sustained effort to achieve. Third: Making Achievement and Performance the Decisive Criteria for Evaluating Public Officials : Before reaching the stage of evaluating government officials, we first need to establish precise criteria for selecting them. It is unrealistic to expect an official to achieve tangible results if the original appointment was flawed or inconsistent with standards based on education, experience, and competence. Officials must therefore be selected from among those who possess the qualifications and capabilities necessary to perform their duties effectively. The future of the country should not be left in the hands of individuals who lack adequate education and competence and rely solely on their tribal affiliations or on the regions they claim to represent. Once officials have been selected on sound and objective grounds, their performance should then be assessed through clear and measurable performance indicators. One noticeable problem is that some institutions develop plans without ensuring that they are aligned with national or state-level plans and the specific timelines established for their implementation. For example, if the state adopts a five-year plan and intends to implement it at a steady rate, this would mean completing 20 percent of the plan each year. Each ministry and institution should therefore be responsible for implementing 20 percent of its assigned share of the plan annually. However, some institutions prepare their own plans with little or no regard for the state’s overall strategy or national plan and may fail to observe these required proportions. When they later prepare their annual reports, they evaluate their performance not according to what they were expected to achieve under the national plan, but according to the targets they set for themselves. An institution may therefore report that it has achieved 100 percent of its own plan, while an assessment based on its required contribution to the national plan might reveal that its actual achievement was negligible or even zero. The next step, therefore, is to evaluate officials on the basis of genuine achievement and the extent of their contribution to implementing the state’s overall plan. Those who make real contributions and achieve clear and measurable results that support the implementation of the established national plan should be rewarded, promoted, and recognized. Conversely, those who fail to perform adequately should be held accountable, subjected to appropriate scrutiny, and dealt with through fair but decisive procedures. Only then will everyone recognize that there is a fair and transparent system based on clearly defined performance standards, with rewards and penalties directly linked to the results of the evaluation. Fourth: Institutional Work Based on Clear and Well-Developed Plans : In the literature on political development, institutionalization refers to giving decision-making processes an institutional character. In other words, political decisions should be made through formal and established structures and frameworks—such as parliament, political parties, and interest groups—with the aim of preventing the personalization of political authority. Political institutionalization therefore refers to the major role played by different political institutions in decision-making. Formal structures, acting according to powers and responsibilities defined in advance, make the decisions necessary for managing government and political affairs on objective grounds, independently of the personal preferences and private interests of individual decision-makers. This contrasts with political systems that lack institutionalization and suffer from the personalization of power, where authority revolves around individuals and the role of institutions is greatly diminished. In such systems, institutions—if they exist at all—may become little more than symbolic structures or instruments used to justify the practices of those in power. This reflects weak or absent institutional effectiveness. Where strong institutions exist, they play a fundamental and vital role in political life. They are essential for protecting society because they help prevent a return to fragmentation and division. They also support coherent political development oriented toward the public interest. Likewise, strengthening complex, effective, and capable institutions contributes to improving the quality of government decisions and ensuring their implementation. States that lack effective institutions are often described as “weak and poorly governed” because they are unable to achieve either private or public interests effectively. Establishing an effective and sound political system therefore requires applying the principles of institutionalization within the political apparatus itself—that is, within the institutions of government. This includes establishing necessary and effective political institutions, ensuring the separation of powers, enabling citizens to participate effectively in managing their affairs, upholding the principles of transparency and accountability, respecting human rights, guaranteeing equality before the law, respecting the constitution, and reforming the administrative apparatus, among other important measures. It is also necessary to extend the values of institutionalization to other areas of the political environment that work alongside the state in building an institutional political system capable of producing good governance. These include political parties, civil society, and the private sector. Fifth: Ensuring That the Benefits of Development Reach Every Citizen and Every Household: Achieving this condition requires explicit recognition of the developmental disparities among the different regions of the country, along with a serious effort to close the development gap in peripheral areas and place this objective at the heart of national planning. It also requires a firm commitment to achieving full equality among citizens regardless of ethnicity, color, language, religion, or region—an equality that enables every individual to feel a genuine emotional and psychological sense of belonging to the nation. All Sudanese communities should also be given the fullest possible opportunity to express their cultural and religious distinctiveness freely, without interference from any authority, so long as such expression does not violate the law or infringe upon the rights of others. In conclusion, these are the five conditions identified by the author of The Turkish Development Experience. Although the gap between Sudanese reality and Sudanese aspirations may appear wide, there is no doubt that Sudan possesses many of the essential foundations and prerequisites for development. These include its important strategic location, vast natural resources, diverse climatic conditions, the availability of a workforce capable of production, and, above all, the presence of what may be called the “human agent of development.” The question, then, is to what extent Sudan will be able to reorganize its affairs, overcome its difficulties, and draw lessons from this pioneering experience of progress and development. The coming years will provide the answer.