This chapter explores the economic and social impacts of sovereign sukuk in Sudan and its unique challenges. The first of its kind, this research collected primary data from different groups of investors of Sudanese governmental sukuk. Adopting a qualitative approach (interview questions and open and closed-ended surveys), four sets of questions were distributed to four groups (individual investors, institutional investors, government officials, and academics). The survey found that despite sukuk's influence in activating the economy and financial markets, and encouraging savings awareness, the market in Sudan is facing many challenges. Accordingly, it is recommended that sukuk issuances should appeal to a wider audience including retail investors. The ensuing system, which could likewise be adopted by other countries, would generate more liquidity for development projects and may prove helpful for developed sukuk markets. Additionally, evolving capital markets would enhance the economic and social impact of governmental sukuk.

The practice of Islamic banking has become a fast growing and widespread phenomenon, not only in the Muslim countries, but also in the Non-Muslim countries too, such as UK, USA, Canada and Singapore. The transformation from a conventional form of banking to a banking system based on interest-free banks has generated a great deal of interest to call for Human Capital Development in the field to ensure sustainability, good performance and good competitive market in the Islamic financial industry. Even though Sudan is the pioneer in taking the initiative of Islamizing its financial industry since 1980s, yet we realized that other countries are taking the leading international and regional hub of Islamic finance such as Malaysia in the Asian region and UK in European countries, and recently Canada is also calling to become one of the hub of Islamic finance in the far west. Africa is also highly expected to host many Islamic financial institutions in the near future as there is a great demand for the Islamic financial products. This urged the authors to shed some light on the role of Sudan Academy for Banking and Financial Sciences and its vision to become a hub for Human Capital Development and in promoting Islamic Finance not only in the African region but also in the Arab countries too.