This rapid review synthesises findings from rigorous academic, practitioner, and policy references, focusing on recent and seminal works with the aim of highlighting the impact of lifting sanctions on poverty and economic development. There is a further aim of helping to inform policymakers in Sudan in the event of sanctions being fully lifted. Therefore, an analysis of the impact of lifting sanctions in other countries – Myanmar and Iran – with an economy also reliant on hydrocarbons will form the basis of this review. Countries like Cuba (where tourism dominates the economy), who have also recently had their sanctions lifted, were discounted as the dynamics of their economies bore little resemblance to Sudan and therefore minimal lessons could be gained.