The lack of sustainable
access to financial services for low-income
people in Sudan has been identified
by the government and other major
actors as one of the core constraints
to poverty alleviation in Sudan.
Following the signing of the 2005
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, microfinance
has been endorsed by the Government
of National Unity and the Government
of Southern Sudan as a central component
of their poverty reduction strategies.
In 2006, the Central Bank of Sudan
formulated a “National Vision
for the Development and Expansion
of the Microfinance Sector in Sudan”,
a two-year strategy on microfinance
sector policies and consequently established
its Microfinance Unit to lead the
development of the sector in Sudan.
In parallel, the Bank of Southern
Sudan created a Microfinance Unit
in 2008 and the Ministry of Social
Welfare also set up a Finance and
Poverty Reduction Unit. A number of
banks in Sothern Sudan also established
Microfinance Units.
In November 2007, the Central Bank
of Sudan with the support of UNDP
as main sponsor, the World Bank, the
International Fund for Agricultural
Development, the German Development
Service (DED) and Zain Telecommunications
Company, hosted the first
National
Consultative Forum on Microfinance
in Sudan . The Forum emphasized the
need for creating a microfinance industry
in Sudan as well as the importance
of business-skills capacity-building
and promoting self-managed savings
groups, especially in rural areas
lacking any kind of financial services.
In this context, and as part of UNDPs
Poverty Reduction Strategy for Sudan,
UNDP funded and launched the
Preparatory
Support to Microfinance and Micro-Business
Development Programming in Sudan
project in June 2008.
To help fill this gap, UNDP with the
support of its Bureau for Crisis Prevention
and Recovery (BCPR) started the Darfur
Livelihoods Programme involving a
large number of local, national and
international partners.
Objectives
Complementary to other actors’
activities, UNDP’s planned areas
of intervention being targeted through
this project are:
1. Strengthening
the national microfinance coordination
mechanism in Sudan
2. Preparing a programme
to support the expansion of microfinance
services across Sudan through mobile
phone technology
3. Developing a conflict-sensitive
microfinance model for Darfur
4. Supporting the
scale-up of selected microfinance
programs in Sudan
5. Designing a National
Youth Volunteers Scheme for rural
Micro-Enterprise Capacity Building
6. Assessing the
feasibility of a Training Voucher
Market Scheme for urban Micro-Enterprise
Capacity Building