Several South Sudanese agricultural extension officers are attending training organized by the International Trade Centre South Sudan Jobs Creation and Trade Development Project.
Kuot Madhor Kuot, Director of Planning and Project Coordinator in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, during the training workshop for 42 extension officers encouraged the trainees to transfer skills and knowledge on fruits and vegetable growing to the grassroots level.
“South Sudan jobs creation is a government project to help people to create jobs for themselves, many organizations have been dealing with humanitarians not job creation, but we came up with this and the International Trade Centre with funding from European Union,” Kuot said during the opening of the workshop in Juba on Monday.
The agricultural extension officers attending the induction and capacity workshop are drawn from Central Equatoria State and Western Equatoria states.
Angelo Wani, Deputy Director in the Directorate of Agriculture in the State Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and Forestry of Central Equatoria State appealed to the participants to make good interaction, and share information.
“I want you to make good use of this training try to focus on the training, share information among yourselves such that at the end you get something and pass it to those who are not part of the training,” Wani said.
Simplisio Oliha, Director Horti-Culture in the National Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, appreciated international donors for supporting the government to be able to train extension officers to grow and improve the fruits and vegetable sector.
“This training will help our officers from the state ministries of agriculture a lot, and will also help the community once they have knowledge on how to manage fruits and vegetables,” Oliha said.
The International Trade Centre South Sudan–Jobs Creation and Trade Development project aims to increase the competitiveness of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and employment opportunities for the South Sudanese population engaged in the fruit and vegetable sector.
The European Union-funded project contributes to addressing the value addition, competitiveness, job creation and trade development challenges of South Sudan. Specifically, the interventions of the project are expected to improve productive capacities and compliance to standards for MSMEs, increase market linkages for MSMEs and enhance employability and entrepreneurship capacity for the South Sudanese labour force, focusing on youth and women.
This project emanates from the technical assistance request of the Government of South Sudan to the International Trade Centre.
It has specific objectives of improving the competitiveness of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and increasing employment opportunities for the South Sudanese labour force, with a focus on youth and women.
In particular, it aims to provide an integrated and holistic assistance for the development of MSMEs in the fruits and vegetables value chains to create quick-win economic and employment opportunities for South Sudanese population targeted under the project.
The project will address the main challenges of the fruits and vegetables subsector along the value chains by improving production, processing and handling practices; building capacities of MSMEs to comply with mandatory market requirements and standards for enhanced access to markets; enhancing human skills as well as strengthening producer cooperatives.
It will also address the employment problems of youth and women by building entrepreneurship and business management capacities and implementing innovative schemes to facilitate access to finance for youth entrepreneurs and youth-owned businesses.
The project has an overall objective of improving the livelihoods of targeted South Sudanese populations through the creation of jobs and income.
