Youth Organization Coalition in South Sudan is calling on the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity R-TGoNU to establish National Youth Enterprise Fund as stipulated in the 2018 peace agreement.
The coalition released a statement on Wednesday saying the Youth Enterprise Development Fund will support and promote entrepreneurship among young people as means to discourage them from perpetuating violence.
The statement said the fund will help youth to become job creators instead of job seekers and assists governments to address socio-economic inequalities.
It added that by creating enterprise ensures an inclusive economic growth and development in the country.
Peter Malir Biar, representative of Youth Organization Coalition said youth unemployment remains the biggest challenge facing the governments in developing countries including South Sudan.
“However, the Youth Enterprise fund model has increasingly become popular strategic intervention to address the underlying socio-economic inequalities, lack of jobs and exclusion of young people from economic governance processes,” He stressed.
Biar added that at the global level, sealing up enterprise support for young people has gained significance as a strategic pillar of the United nations, International Labor Organization and the World Bank. These international institutions identified entrepreneurship has important priority in promoting youth livelihoods, foster employment and ensure inclusive economic growth.
The Youth coalitions urged the government to establish the youth enterprise fund through an act of parliament to clearly spell out the governance, fund management modality, implementation strategy and monitoring and audit requirements by an independent body.
“The government should ensure that the youths participate in the process of the implementation for the youth to own the idea, suggest the fund modality and the implementation strategy.
The youths also called on the enterprise to show clear strategic plan that is linked to national development strategy
The coalition urged the government to reconstitute the parliament as soon as possible so as the youth development policy can be passed to law.
The activist called on the president to immediately act and implement the recommendations made by the economic crisis committee to reform National Revenue Authority.
The Chapter four of the peace agreement mandates the establishment of the youth enterprise fund to support and promote development among the youth.
It also commands the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity R-TGoNU to implement robust economic reforms that will enable the population enjoy peace dividends inform of infrastructure, service delivery and inclusive economic growth.
