Strengthening South Sudan’s Financial Sector

active

The objective of the project is to strengthen the institutional and supervisory capacity of the central bank and improve the efficiency of core financial sector infrastructure. The project will have 4 components: (i) Formulating Financial Sector Policies; (ii) Institutional Strengthening of the Central Bank; (iii) Supporting the Development and Modernization of Key Infrastructure for the Financial Sector; and (iv) Project Management and coordination.Component 1: Formulating Financial Sector Policies: Having a robust financial sector is a key driver for economic development and requires synchronized efforts from all key sectoral stakeholders. To achieve this, it is important to have a clear vision for the sector. Specifically, the Project will support BoSS in developing a clear financial sector development strategy and roadmap for accelerating growth and stability of the sector and to catalyze various policy reforms. Technical assistance will be provided to the central bank to also put into place a clear monitoring framework to assess implementation and impact on the ground. The strategy will be built upon sound diagnostics and sector level stock-taking that responds to market needs and promotes an evidence-based approach to policy making. Training will also be provided to BoSS on strategy formulation and broader financial sector development issues. Component 2: Institutional Strengthening of the Central Bank: It is imperative to build internal capacity within the regulator to effectively oversee the sector, implement key strategies and policies and respond to market needs and potential risks. Accordingly, this component will focus on: (i) enhancing the supervisory and regulatory oversight of BoSS, and; (ii) establishing the South Sudan Institute of Banking and Finance (SSIBF) to strengthen the technical capacity within BoSS and the financial industry and build a pipeline of financial sector professionals. Component 3: Supporting the Development and Modernization of Key Infrastructure for the Financial Sector: This component will support the upgrading of critical information technology infrastructure and provision of related technical assistance in BoSS and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). This will include modernization of the core banking system in BoSS and the automation of the FIU processes, as well as capacity building.Component 4: Project Management and Coordination: This component will cover the costs of project management, implementation, and supervision including procurement and financial management activities and audits; preparation of annual work plans; implementation of environmental and social (E&S) monitoring; grievance redress mechanism (GRM); monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and reporting; and communications requirements. It will also support the operational costs of other implementation structures, such as the project steering committee and other coordination structures, as needed.