The project aims to empower youth in five targeted locations of Bor, Jubek, Rumbek, Torit and Yambio through nurturing their entrepreneurial culture and market-linked skills and enhance their employability and productive engagement in economic activities. The project also seeks to increase the productivity and labour-absorptive capacities of agriculture and natural resource-linked value chains and private sector enterprises with a focus on young men and women.
South Sudan is endowed with vast natural resources and economic potential that has not translated into improved standards of living for the citizens. This is primarily due to ongoing conflicts which have roots in political contestation for power and are fuelled by poverty, high unemployment and absence of economic opportunities for the predominantly youthful population. The few small-scale, and potentially labour-absorbing enterprises at the state levels are unable to utilise the local labour force due to skills mismatch. The skills deficits, attributed to decades of conflict which deprived the population opportunities to acquire employable, entrepreneurial and vocational skills are also exacerbated by absence of training institutions.
Six thousand young people will benefit from vocational, entrepreneurship, market-linked and soft skills training, provision of small and micro enterprise start-up kits, job and employment creation through the development of inclusive value chains and private sector enterprises. It is also expected that an additional 100,000 youth, in targeted locations, will benefit indirectly from some of the activities such as job fairs and public programmes on entrepreneurial skills (social media hangouts, TV shows, innovation boot camps and conventions).
The project stakeholders include:
o Young men and women in Bor, Jubek, Rumbek, Torit and Yambio and their local and surrounding communities.
o South Sudan CSOs, INGOs, academia, chambers of commerce and private sector working in youth empowerment and private sector development. Where formal agreements are required, UNDP will be guided by relevant programme and project management guidelines.
o Political leadership in the targeted states, states government ministries, state revenue authorities and state legislative assemblies for the creation of enabling environment for MSEs to flourish.
Implementation approach
To manage risk and optimize results, the project will be implemented in two phases:
Phase 1: Within the first six months the project will undertake; feasibility studies for the proposed project components, conflict analyses, social and environmental standards assessments, engage with key stakeholders within the targeted states.
Phase 2: Full implementation of the proposed, and tested project components
The following principles will guide project implementation during both phases:
o Address the socio-economic drivers of conflict: As a peacebuilding and economic growth initiative, the project, will leverage existing UNDP support to address the factors that fuel the conflict from a local economy perspective, considering the fragility of the environment, and the vulnerability of youth.
o Conflict sensitivity: In partnership with the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility, UNDP will integrate conflict sensitivity into the project to create a ‘virtuous circle’ to ensure that the project is not seriously undermined by the ongoing conflict around the project locations, whilst also not fuelling the same. The project will undertake and continuously update conflict sensitivity analyses in the operational areas throughout the project life cycle. UNDP appreciates that each of the five locations present different conflict sensitivity risks and opportunities related to potential urban-rural patterns of conflict, displacement dynamics etc. These risks and opportunities will be reviewed as part of the conflict sensitivity analysis during the project’s inception period, and the project design and implementation will be adapted based on this analysis and ongoing reflections.
o Social and environment safeguards: the project will be cognizant of human rights, gender equality and environmental considerations for sustainable development. During Phase 1, the project will undertake in-depth assessments in these focus areas to maximise project impact at minimal cost to the environment and ensure gender equality during implementation.
Juba Multi-Service Training Center graduated 880 innovative, quality, skills human resources in the country. Through Ministry of Labour, the center received some supports from development agencies implementing projects funded by Africa Development Bank. MTC has become a center for peace where different youths from different backgrounds of South Sudan get opportunities to acquire major sustainable skills to answer a call of youths for employments, which aimed to reduce the burden of widespread youths’ unemployment in South Sudan.
The Africa Development Bank is supporting training centers in MTC, Torit, Rumbek and Yambio targeting to reach 10,000 students”.
In MTC, the financial support got from Africa Development Bank is supporting 670 trainees out of which 216 are females in different trays of skills training of 2 to 3 months.