Courtesy-of-sgdatabase.unwomen.org

The United Nations says it has come up with strategic plans for empowering women in South Sudan economically by engaging them in entrepreneurship and literacy programs.

The representative of the UN WOMEN in South Sudan, Izenduwa Derrex-Briggs told journalists that several groups of women around the country are set to benefit from the project.

Derrex-Briggs was addressing journalists in Juba:

She said “There are women who are importing cars into this country for example, there are women who are doing arts and selling the arts and they are entrepreneurs. There are women who are supplying fruits to all the hotels. So, women are real entrepreneurs and we are supporting them in growing their business. So we are supporting the women to increase production, to look at packaging and exports”

You know the women work in small groups, for or example in Central Equatoria, we have them in Kajo-Keji, we have them in Yei. So what we are doing is that we are supporting them into cooperatives and we are bringing the cooperatives together so that the production would increase. So we have looked at eight groups of women bringing them together as cooperatives so that they can increase their production”, she added

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of UN Women says there are plans to form literacy programs to educate women and girls at UNMISS protection sites.

Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, the Executive Director of UN women, said women make up 70 percent of those affected by the crisis and that most of them are deprived of their rights.

She called on volunteers to come forward to inform women about their rights.