OREANDA-NEWS. June 24, 2015. Construction of South Sudan Customs Service headquarters in Juba is underway. Funded by the African Development Bank, the activity is part of support provided through the Public Finance Management and Aid Coordination Project (PFAID).

The project was one of the first operations submitted to the AfDB Board to assist recovery and development efforts of South Sudan. The US \\$7.34 million grant from the African Development Fund’s Transition Support Facility (TSF) aims to enhance transparency and accountability in the use of public resources through training. In addition, it seeks to improve aid coordination, enhance skills transfers, and operational effectiveness of beneficiary institutions. The beneficiaries of the project are seven entities under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. These include the Directorates of Economic Planning, South Sudan Customs Service, Budget, Treasury, Internal Audit, Taxation as well as the National Audit Chamber.

An AfDB mission visited Juba from May 25 to June 5, 2015 to supervise the implementation progress of the PFAID project. The mission comprised representatives from the Governance Department, the East Africa Regional Service Centre, Transition Support Department, African Natural Resources Center, and Office of the Special Envoy on Gender.  The team held discussions with South Sudan authorities on additional areas for support.

The Government through Wani Buyu Dyori, the Undersecretary for Planning, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP), thanked the Bank for its continued support and requested additional capacity building in economic governance, particularly macro-economic planning, aid coordination and debt management, accountability in the use of public resources, and domestic resource mobilisation.

The Bank has also allocated a grant from the TSF to support the Government’s efforts to promote inclusive growth through sustainable management of renewable natural resources and economic empowerment for women. The intervention will focus on providing assistance in the development of policies for sustainable management of renewable natural resources, with specific focus on land and forestry.

Esther Ikere, Undersecretary Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare, welcomed the the project, which will also strengthen efforts to empower and enhance financial inclusion of women in the natural resources sector.