Administrative Fragmentation and the Measurement of Human and Sustainable Development in Sudan: A documentary analysis with reference to Nyala and Port Sudan

Armed conflict can damage both human development and the systems used to measure it. This article examines the implications of administrative fragmentation in Sudan, using Nyala and Port Sudan as contrasting institutional settings rather than statistically matched city samples. A focused documentary review combines six Sudan-specific empirical and operational sources with methodological, theoretical and contextual literature retrieved through 23 October 2026. Sources are appraised for population coverage, reference dates, collection methods, indicator definitions and geographical relevance. The evidence shows continued production of household surveys, displacement estimates and service-monitoring reports alongside serious limitations in coverage and comparability. It therefore supports an account of disrupted and uneven measurement rather than the disappearance of all national statistics. Population movement destabilizes denominators; telephone access can select which households are observed; service counts measure different constructs from the Human Development Index; and state-level evidence cannot establish citylevel performance. Available documents do not identify an independent causal effect of administrative fragmentation or support separate HDI estimates for the two cities. The article proposes a coordinated system of dated population estimates, common metadata, complementary surveys and administrative records, explicit uncertainty reporting and protected data sharing. Recovery planning should strengthen measurement capacity while retaining visibility of populations excluded from routine reporting. Reliable assessment requires transparent limits and locally grounded validation as well as renewed institutional cooperation.