Stanbic Bank South Sudan, through the Stanbic Bank Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday inked a long-term partnership to implement development projects in South Sudan.
The projects will be implemented using a USD 9.2 million dollars grant from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and seek to promote socio-economic development support for women, youth, the most vulnerable, capacity building, and institution development across multiple sectors in South Sudan.
The UNDP South Sudan Resident Representative, Dr. Samuel Gbaydee Doe, said they hope to achieve 5 objectives through the partnership.
“There are five objectives we are hoping to achieve through this partnership. The first is to promote financial inclusion for especially young women and men in the financial sector,” UNDP’s Doe said. “Secondly, we want to support small and medium enterprises in extending or having access to extended markets, not only in South Sudan but markets in the East African Community, in the context of the African Free Trade Area Agreement that has now been implemented by the African Union and the governments of the continent.”
“We are also hoping that through this partnership, we can strengthen young people’s financial literacy so that they understand how to manage their finances, how they understand how to grow their finances across the country,” he added.
Speaking at the same event, the Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan Chief Executive Officer, Charles Mudiwa, said that they are looking at training people, giving them computers, and sourcing funds to help young people get credit.
“We are looking at training a number of people so that the value we are giving is related to number one ability. We have already given 20 computers,” Mudiwa said. “We are looking at donating more computers to support some of the youth programs that are doing better. We expect another 20 computers that will come in two weeks and we will start the journey to train people.”
The partners said they will specifically promote financial literacy and capacity-building support for various stakeholders, youth, and women entrepreneurs in various sectors, including agriculture. The collaboration will also support micro, small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) through upskilling to ensure that locally owned businesses can participate competitively in both domestic and regional trade.
Andrew Murugu, the country head of Stanbic Bank South Sudan said they have taken an important step, not just for Stanbic Bank but for, the rest of South Sudan’s private sector.
“We believe that South Sudan’s socio-economic transformation will be accelerated by partnerships between government, development partners, and the private sector,” Murugu added. “There is strength when the partners with mutual interests come together and I believe with our respective strengths, this partnership will make meaningful contributions to South Sudan and our people.”