The YEDCB project seeks to ensure that young women and men aged 18-35 years with the potential to grow as entrepreneurs are self-employed and/or create employment for others through their businesses. Specifically, the project will address: (i) strengthening entrepreneurship skills provision; (ii) the lack of access to finance; (iii) the lack of access to markets and information; and (iv) capacity challenges of government institutions to improve institutional and policy environment for youth empowerment and MSE development. The project will also support entrepreneurship opportunities unveiled in the climate adaptation and climate resilience ecosystem.
The development goal of the YEDCB project is to enhance employability and job creation for youth in South Sudan through strengthening the private sector, building entrepreneurship skills, and improving the enabling environment. The specific objectives of the YEDCB project are: (i) increase employability of young women and men by facilitating access to skills development, business development support and financing; and (ii) enhance public service delivery through institutional and human capacity development. These will contribute to addressing the underlying drivers of fragility, enhance inclusivity and build resilience.
Implementation arrangements 4.1.1 The project will be implemented over a period of four (4) years. The Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) will be the Executing Agency (EA). Due to the low capacity of the Ministries to implement such projects, the Bank will engage a third-party implementing agency (TPIA) for the project. The Government requested that UNDP implements the project on its behalf. The Bank has already signed a Fiduciary Principles Agreement (FPA) with UNDP that describes the procurement and financial management arrangements. UNDP will charge an administrative fee of five percent (5%) of the project costs for implementation. Given that sustainability is key to the approach of the project, UNDP will also be responsible for skills and knowledge transfer to the staff of the EA through capacity building and sharing of experiences. A “twinning” approach will be used with representatives from the EA working side-by-side with UNDP staff as secretariat to the PSC, while benefiting from the reporting and project management systems and processes employed by UNDP. UNDP will engage civil society organizations in the delivery of project activities, particularly in the organization of MSEs and provision of business development support.
The project will build capacity of 6 government institutions namely, Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS); Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoFP); Ministry of Labour (MoL); Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI); Ministry of Public Services and Human Resources Development (MoPSHRD); and the Economic cluster under the Office of the Vice Presidency, to enhance public service delivery through institutional and human capacity development. Due to the diverse nature and mandates of institutions to be supported by the project and to ensure relevance of the capacity building activities, the project will support a rapid but comprehensive capacity assessment for five (5) selected government institutions and the intervention will be informed by the capacity building plan that will be developed. The capacity assessment of the five (5) institutions will benefit from the lessons learnt by UNDP during the recently concluded capacity assessment of the Ministry of Finance and Planning.