Khartoum Hosted a UN–Arab Workshop to Link Sudan’s Food and Climate Plans. The Food-Systems Plan Is Being Updated. Build Climate Into It Before COP31.

On 27–28 October, ESCWA, the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development and Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture met in Khartoum to align food and climate action. Sudan’s 2022–2030 food-systems plan is due for an update. Write climate targets into it, and into the next NDC, before COP31.

A national workshop on advancing coherent climate and food systems action in Sudan, organised by ESCWA, the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, met at AOAD headquarters in Khartoum on 27–28 October 2026. (Illustration: 3Bi)

3Bi Situation Report — Climate & Energy Desk | First edition | Information cut-off: 31 October 2026, 04:00 UTC

Headline Fact

Sudan has started the work of making its food plans and its climate plans speak to each other. On 27–28 October 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) held a national workshop in Khartoum on “Advancing coherent climate and food systems action in the Sudan”, with the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub (ESCWA, event page, 27–28 October 2026). It met at AOAD’s headquarters and discussed how drought, water scarcity, extreme weather and land degradation affect every stage of the food system, from farm to market. Sessions covered integrated resilience, agricultural insurance and a roadmap for bringing climate action and food-systems transformation together (SUNA, 28 October 2026). ESCWA describes it as the first of three national capacity-building workshops planned under its project “Bridging the Climate-Food Nexus” (ESCWA, event page). At the opening, Sudan’s national coordinator for food-systems transformation said the country’s food-systems transformation plan for 2022–2030 needs updating (Sudan Horizon, 29 October 2026). That update is the opening. COP31 starts in Antalya in nine days.

Timeline

• October 2021: Sudan submits its updated first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UNFCCC (UNFCCC, Sudan Updated First NDC, 12 October 2021).

• 2025: ESCWA launches “Bridging the Climate-Food Nexus in Arab Least Developed Countries”, funded by the UN Development Account. It aims to help Arab LDCs align their food-systems transformation pathways with their climate plans, with a particular focus on Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen. AOAD and the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub are collaborating entities (ESCWA, project page, accessed 31 October 2026).

• 3–4 December 2025: The project’s inception meeting in Amman brings together food-systems convenors and climate focal points from Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. National consultants in Sudan and Yemen present plans to map where food and climate policies overlap or leave gaps. Proposed next steps include national working groups and identifying entry points that can become bankable projects (ESCWA, meeting page and outcome, December 2025).

• 24 September 2026: FAO reports that June–September rainfall in Sennar and Gedaref, two states that together grow about a quarter of Sudan’s sorghum, was about 20% and 30% below average, with severe drought on up to 55% and 70% of their cropland (FAO GIEWS Country Brief: Sudan, 24 September 2026).

• 27–28 October 2026: The Khartoum workshop meets. Presentations listed by ESCWA include Sudan’s climate challenges and vulnerabilities, a contribution from the Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), Sudan’s climate focal institution, and a session on adopting a food-systems approach (ESCWA, event page).

• 29 October 2026: Sudanese media report the workshop’s close and the call to update the 2022–2030 plan (Sudan Horizon, 29 October 2026).

What We Know / What We Don’t

We know who is in the room. The workshop was organised by the Technical Secretariat for Food Security at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation together with AOAD, with ESCWA and the Food Systems Coordination Hub supporting. Government institutions, UN agencies, financial institutions, the private sector and civil society took part (Sudan Horizon, 29 October 2026; SUNA, 28 October 2026).

We know what officials asked for. Speaking for the ministry’s undersecretary, Dr Ajeeb Muhammad Madani called for practical solutions that keep farm production going and help food systems adapt to climate change. Amira Al-Rawi, Secretary-General of the Technical Secretariat for Food Security and national coordinator for food-systems transformation, called for an integrated national approach. She linked climate action to farm production, supply chains, marketing and food waste. Her deputy, Ibrahim Al-Shaher, stressed coordination across the agriculture, environment and climate sectors and the sharing of data (Sudan Horizon, 29 October 2026). Participants discussed turning national priorities into practical interventions and called for institutional coordination, resource mobilisation including climate finance, and monitoring and evaluation (Sudan Horizon, 29 October 2026). SUNA adds that the workshop aimed to identify investment priorities (SUNA, 28 October 2026).

We know the international yardstick has moved. At the project’s inception meeting, an IIED expert noted that the 59 indicators agreed for the Global Goal on Adaptation include five specifically on food systems, and urged Arab LDCs to use them to find gaps in their NDCs and National Adaptation Plans (ESCWA, meeting outcome, December 2025).

We do not know what the workshop concluded. As of the cut-off, 3Bi found no published outcome note, list of priorities or roadmap. We do not know when the updated food-systems plan will be finished, whether it will be tied to Sudan’s next NDC, or where and when the project’s two remaining workshops will take place. Sudan’s NDC 3.0 was listed as pending when 3Bi last checked (Africa NDC Hub, accessed 18 October 2026); that status may have changed.

Implications

In our reading, this is a planning moment that Sudan controls. Two national documents are open at the same time: a food-systems plan that officials say needs updating, and a climate pledge that is due for renewal, since Sudan’s current NDC dates from 2021. Each could be rewritten in its own ministry. The workshop’s value is that it put the two teams in the same room before either draft is fixed.

The case for joining them is practical. This year’s poor rains hit Sudan’s food production directly (FAO GIEWS, 24 September 2026), and the climate risks the workshop listed, drought, water scarcity and extremes, are the same ones a climate plan must price. A food-systems plan with climate targets is easier to fund: climate funds look for adaptation outcomes that can be measured, and the Global Goal on Adaptation now offers food-system indicators to measure them.

In our view, three low-cost steps follow. First, the Technical Secretariat for Food Security and HCENR could agree a short joint list of climate-and-food priorities, drawn from this week’s discussions, and use it in both the updated 2022–2030 plan and the NDC 3.0 draft. Second, they could map each priority to one of the Global Goal on Adaptation’s food-system indicators, so that progress can be reported in the same terms that negotiators will use at COP31. Third, before Antalya, they could pick two or three entry points that can become bankable projects, for example agricultural insurance or drought early warning for farmers, the kind of entry points the project’s inception meeting asked countries to identify.

3Bi is not claiming that a workshop or a plan will by itself protect Sudan’s harvests, or that funding will follow. The point is narrower: Sudan is rewriting its food plan while its next climate pledge is still pending, and writing them together costs little now and much more later.

Watch Next

• 9–20 November 2026: COP31 in Antalya (UNFCCC, COP31 page, accessed 22 October 2026). The four-year Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security is due to conclude there (C2ES, 3 June 2026). Watch for food systems in Sudan’s statements.

• Later in 2026 (planned): ESCWA’s next two national workshops under the project (ESCWA, event page). Watch for the Khartoum workshop’s outcome note.

• No date set: the updated 2022–2030 food-systems transformation plan and Sudan’s NDC 3.0.

Sourcing & Next Update

Primary sources: ESCWA, “Advancing coherent climate and food systems action in the Sudan” event page (27–28 October 2026); SUNA, “Closing of a national workshop on linking climate action and food systems pathways in Sudan” (28 October 2026); Sudan Horizon, “Sudan: National Workshop to Strengthen Interconnection between climate action and food systems pathways” (29 October 2026); ESCWA, “Bridging the Climate-Food Nexus in Arab Least Developed Countries” project page (accessed 31 October 2026); ESCWA, “Climate and food: building resilient food systems in Arab least developed countries” meeting page and outcome (3–4 December 2025); FAO GIEWS Country Brief: Sudan (24 September 2026); UNFCCC, Sudan Updated First NDC (12 October 2021); Africa NDC Hub, Sudan snapshot (accessed 18 October 2026); C2ES, “Issues and Options: The Future of Agriculture and Food Security Discussions Under the UNFCCC” (3 June 2026); UNFCCC, COP31 page. Arabic-source quotations are 3Bi translations. For methodology questions or to propose a correction, contact 3Bi’s Research Team via 3bisudan.org.

Next update expected when the workshop’s outcome note or the updated food-systems plan is published, or when Sudan submits its NDC 3.0.

3Bi Research Team. This piece was produced through 3Bi’s automated daily publications workflow, which monitors regional and international climate and energy reporting.

This publication is produced with support from 3Bi’s institutional donors; see the full funder list at 3bisudan.org.