30/11/2007
Thousands Of Jobs Created Through UN Development Scheme In Sudan

More than 7,000 jobs in agriculture, construction and the small business sector have been created across Sudan under a scheme managed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to try to alleviate poverty and hunger in the African country.

UNDP said this week that its €54 million Recovery and Rehabilitation Programme (RRP), funded by the European Union, is running projects in Abyei Area and nine Sudanese states: River Nile, Red Sea, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, Upper Nile, Warrap, Central Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria and Northern Bahr al Ghazal.

The RRP was set up to help local communities rebuild their infrastructure and economies after the January 2005 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the long-running north-south civil war in Sudan.

It is also designed to help Sudan work to achieve one of the eight ambitious socio-economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

At least 4,500 of the new jobs have been created through microcredit loan schemes in which members of rural communities submit a business proposal to a committee comprising local leaders and, if they are approved, agree to pay back the amount of credit borrowed and 10 per cent of profits made. The money returned is then used to extend a loan to the next entrepreneur.

Most of the other jobs are in the fields of agriculture or construction, according to UNDP.