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Good practice Imported

Job Creation through Youth and Women-led Micro and Small Enterprises (JMSE) — South Sudan

South Sudan · Juba · See the South Sudan profile · See the Juba profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 89% 48/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A $5.28M AfDB grant, implemented by UNDP with South Sudan's Ministry of Trade, targets 1,060 young people and 830 women entrepreneurs in Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal for business skills, capital access, and support to 100 micro and small enterprises through 2028.

5.28 US$ million
African Development Fund (AfDB) grant
1.2 US$ million
Additional UNDP top-up funding
1,060 target, not yet achieved
Target: young people to be reached (50% women) (2025-2028)
830 target, not yet achieved
Target: women entrepreneurs to be reached (2025-2028)
100 target, not yet achieved
Target: youth- and women-led micro/small enterprises supported (2025-2028)
Job Creation through Youth and Women-led Micro and Small Enterprises (JMSE) — South Sudan

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Ministry of Trade, Industry and East African Community Affairs, Republic of South Sudan — implemented by UNDP, financed by the African Development Bank
Period
2025-2028
Keywords
youth employment, women entrepreneurship, micro and small enterprise development, job creation, fragile states

Context

JMSE is a $5.28 million African Development Fund grant (African Development Bank, Transition Support Facility), topped up with $1.2 million from UNDP, running January 2025 to December 2028, executed by South Sudan's Ministry of Trade, Industry and East African Community Affairs and implemented by UNDP.

Objectives

Support the creation and growth of 100 youth- and women-led micro and small enterprises, targeting 1,060 young people (50% women) and 830 women entrepreneurs in Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal states, including displaced populations.

Activities

The project combines business-skills training with improved access to capital and markets, building on a longer-running effort to create an enabling environment for private-sector job creation in South Sudan's fragile, conflict-affected setting.

Conclusions

As of the latest public documentation, the project is in early implementation: the figures above are approved grant targets, not yet-measured achievements, and no outcome results have been published. South Sudan's conflict and displacement context creates substantial delivery risk that has not yet been tested against this specific project.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Trade, Industry and East African Community Affairs, Republic of South Sudan (executing agency), UNDP (implementing agency), African Development Bank / African Development Fund (financier, Transition Support Facility)

Conditions for success

  • Explicit numeric gender-balance targets (50% women among youth beneficiaries, plus a dedicated 830 women entrepreneurs) built into project design
  • Geographic focus on two states including displaced populations, rather than a diffuse national rollout

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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