The Jobs Fund

The Jobs Fund supports innovative initiatives and approaches to job creation. The Fund offers once-off grants in the areas of enterprise development, infrastructure, support for work seekers and institutional capacity building.

The Jobs Fund was established in 2011 and operates on challenge fund principles. The Fund issues open calls for proposals and considers proposals from the public sector including municipalities and government departments and the private sector and not-for-profit organisations that can contribute towards achieving systemic impact on job creation and poverty reduction.

About

Since 2011, the Jobs Fund has demonstrated that it is possible for the private and public sectors, as well as civil society organisations to collaborate, share risk and achieve greater social impact by implementing innovative models for job creation and thereby catalysing broader economic participation and inclusion.

The Jobs Fund has opened its 13th Call for Proposals under the theme: Catalysing Demand-Led Growth in the Green and Informal Economy. They are inviting applications that unlock job creation at scale. Applications are open from 18 May to 30 June at 15:00.

This funding round is focused on addressing structural and market barriers that constrain enterprise growth and employment absorption. Priority will be given to initiatives operating within:

the green economy
micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
the informal economy

The Jobs Fund remains open to proposals from other labour-absorptive sectors with strong employment potential, such as the tourism sector.

Visit the Jobs Fund website for more information.

To read the latest Jobs Fund news and to download their newsletters click here.

Project in the Spotlight

Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator

South Africans from the most marginalised backgrounds rarely get the chance to come into contact with potential employers. There are multiple reasons for this: the social and geographic legacy of apartheid, the poor quality of schooling, high cost of transport, limited skills and experience. Experience is the determining factor in how likely a person is to gain formal employment, locking out millions of youth caught in the vicious cycle of not having experience and not being able to access it.

Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator helps thousands of young South Africans to get and keep their first job, in a way that simultaneously addresses the needs of employers and employees. Through extensive consultation with employers around their recruitment needs and challenges faced in hiring young people, Harambee has structured a rigorous bridging programme that directly addresses these needs and offers employers the option of tapping into all or parts of the value chain.

Driven by its social impact objective, Harambee recruits South African work-seekers between the ages of 18 and 34 from marginalised communities, who have at least completed Grade 10 and are not studying full time.