Labour Supply/Demand In World’s Newest Market

In April of 2013, Integrity conducted a quantitative evaluation in Juba, South Sudan, on behalf of the World Bank’s Financial and Private Sector Development unit.

As is true of many new markets, accurate information on labour, supply chain, tax policy and operational costs is limited or entirely unavailable. The Government of South Sudan’s own positions, in regards to foreign labour and foreign run business are still evolving. As a result, the hazy operating environment can leave workers vulnerable and businesses exposed to considerable risk.

As such, Integrity, the World Bank and others are increasingly invested in mapping the private sector in order to provide clearer recommendations on governance, capacity building, economic development and livelihoods programming. The objective of this particular study was to assess the potential for employment generation by the private sector and the readiness of job seekers to respond to the demand. More specifically, the survey data was envisioned to serve dual purposes: aiding in the design and implementation of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment’s (MCII) upcoming South Sudan Business Plan Competition (SBPC) whilst also enabling the World Bank to improve the design of capacity development matching programmes.

An Integrity team led by Melyn McKay and Gard Owiti worked closely with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), a trusted partner, in designing outreach methods and undertaking data collection. The complex sampling methods were designed and adapted by Dr. James Khalil.

The fieldwork was completed using tablets running FormHub programmed surveys on ODK. In addition to being user friendly, this method enabled Integrity to align with other, concurrent World Bank projects thus ensuring that the NBS enumerator training continued to develop skills shared by the World Bank.