Khartoum
- Country
- Sudan
- Population
- 5M
- Projects
- 3
- First project
- 2014
- Best evidence
- Independent
- Last verified
- 15 August 2026
Khartoum's three entries are all about what a city keeps when the rooms that ran it are gone. A private bank's app became the way people buy bread; the national payment switch was rebuilt while the grid it depends on was not; and an electricity utility that lost its control room still has its customer record. None of this was designed as war infrastructure. It is simply the part of the digital layer that turned out to be portable.
The atlas documents 3 projects in Khartoum: 3 still running without a verdict. Every entry carries an evidence grade — the strongest here is independent (1 entry) — and links its sources.
How Khartoum got smart
The rails were laid in peacetime and by different owners. Bank of Khartoum launched Bankak in 2014 as an ordinary mobile banking app, while Electronic Banking Services, the central bank's infrastructure arm, ran the country's payment switch and cheque clearing from the capital. Electricity was already billed in advance: the state holding company kept a geo-referenced database of prepaid consumers that is, in effect, the city's household register for power.
April 2023 turned all three into something else. With branches in Khartoum and Omdurman looted and cash supplies halted, the app became the default way to pay for groceries, transport and remittances — and the dependence cut both ways, going down for as long as four days at a stretch and disappearing entirely in the nationwide telecom blackout of February 2024. The same month RSF fighters took the national load dispatch centre, and the transmission company has run the grid manually ever since, coordinating by cell phone across a network split into a northern and a southern half.
The rebuilding has been uneven in a way the entries make legible. Cheque clearing was restored on 7 January 2026, the switch operator was accredited as Sudan's first SWIFT service bureau that June, and a new National Switch went live on 6 August 2026. The grid moved more slowly: by mid-2026 the energy ministry counted more than 20 substations rehabilitated and over 1,700 km of transmission lines repaired, while Khartoum still faced cuts of up to 18 hours a day.
Timeline (2014–2014)
- — EBS National Payment Switch Live
- — Prepaid Meters on a Grid Run by Phone Live
- 2014 — Bankak: a Banking App as Wartime Lifeline Live
All 3 projects in Khartoum
✔ Every published entry is checked against the public sources it cites before publication.
Outcome: 3 ongoing — Evidence: 1 independent · 1 official · 1 media
How the pieces connect
Editorial links between Khartoum's own entries — the city as a system, not a list.
- EBS National Payment Switch ↔ Bankak: a Banking App as Wartime LifelineBankak's transfers ride the rails EBS runs: the private app never stopped for long; the state switch behind it was restored in 2026.
- EBS National Payment Switch ↔ Prepaid Meters on a Grid Run by PhoneThe payment rails survived the war better than the power rails: EBS was restored by 2026 while Khartoum still ran on 18-hour cuts.
What's next
Plans and announced trajectories — not yet documented results.
The gap worth watching is not technical. Payment rails came back faster than the grid that powers them — Sudan relaunched its national switch in the same week as its third nationwide blackout in seven days — and the utility that kept its meter fleet still announces cuts through ministry statements rather than a schedule residents can plan around. Neighbouring capitals publish exactly that: Bamako's utility posts when the power will go off. It is the humblest instrument in this field and the one Khartoum is still missing.
Deeper reads
Where Khartoum appears in the atlas's own analysis.
Closest comparisons
Two cities the atlas reads next to Khartoum — the reason first, then the entries it rests on. Chosen by hand from the Khartoum threads below, not counted out of them.
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🇱🇷 Monrovia
In both capitals the payment rail is what reaches people no bank branch does — and neither rail belongs to the city: one a state gateway dialled from any phone, the other a single private bank's app.
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🇺🇦 Kyiv
Two capitals at war, and the digital service each kept is the one people could not do without: Kyiv's city app grew into air-raid alerts, while Khartoum's payment rail was destroyed and rebuilt around a private bank's app.
Show 7 further city threadsShow fewer
Every editorial link from Khartoum's entries into another city, strongest first. Each one is a statement about two projects, not about two cities — the three above are the ones the atlas is willing to make at city level.
- 🇺🇦 Kyiv: Kyiv Digital municipal super-app Digital infrastructure at war: Kyiv's app grew into safety services; Khartoum's payment switch was destroyed and relaunched in 2026.
- 🇺🇦 Kyiv: Kyiv Digital municipal super-app Digital lifelines at war: Kyiv's city app added safety services; Khartoum leaned on a private bank's app when cash collapsed.
- 🇱🇷 Monrovia: LRA Digital Mobile Tax Gateway Both are national payment rails run by a revenue/financial authority, not a city, reaching people with no bank branch nearby.
- 🇹🇩 N'Djamena: SYDONIA World Customs Digitalisation Two national digital-government rails rebuilt in neighbouring fragile states rather than by any city hall.
- 🇱🇾 Tripoli: GECOL Prepaid Electricity Meters Same instrument, different war: Tripoli's meters log who paid through blackouts; Khartoum's kept billing as its dispatch room fell.
- 🇲🇱 Bamako: EDM-SA Published Load-Shedding Schedule for Bamako Bamako publishes when the power goes off; Khartoum's 18-hour cuts follow no published timetable — the other half of the rationing axis.
- 🇱🇷 Monrovia: LRA Digital Mobile Tax Gateway Both reach people no branch serves — Monrovia through a state USSD gateway, Khartoum through one private bank's app.
Official strategy and sources
📎 Cite this city
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Smart-city projects in Khartoum, Sudan.” The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/cities/khartoum/ (last verified 2026-08-15). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.