The Sudanese housing policies encompass two main types of programs. The first one addresses the needs of all sectors of the population for the provision of plots through site and services schemes. The second type provides small built core units (Incremental housing) for the low- income groups. The aim of the paper is to review the provision of sustainable low-income housing in research and practice. The research selected some low-cost housing studies to represent research efforts and some low-cost housing constructed projects to represent the practice, these projects were constructed in different periods of time e.g. New Duim project _1949, El shabiya project_1963, Al Iskan Project _1975 and state fund projects _2001. The analysis focused on three parameters: the scope of the project, the design of the core unit and the construction including building materials and technologies, these parameters are discussed comparing research efforts and the practice.

The research found that studies presented proposals for housing clusters provided good ventilation and simple design of the plots with direct access for cars and savings on sewage network. Old constructed projects had comprehensive approach including socio-_economic surveys of the intended inhabitants, while new constructed projects put more emphasis on quantities of built units than on quality of housing. Research studies proposed cheap building materials and technologies which is more sustainable than the expensive imported materials used in new constructed projects. The research identified the introduction of mixed housing of different income levels in new constructed projects that guaranteed social sustainability.