{"id":234405,"date":"2025-10-30T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234405\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:47:08","slug":"south-africa-rolls-out-135-million-fund-to-curb-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234405\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa rolls out $135 million fund to curb unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        South Africa will on Friday begin offering loans through a 2.5 billion rand ($135 million) Youth Fund aimed at supporting small businesses, as the government steps up efforts to address one of the world\u2019s highest youth unemployment rates.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Nearly half of South Africans aged 15 to 34 are unemployed, according to Statistics South Africa. The new fund seeks to change that by backing high-potential small and medium enterprises (SMEs), National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) Deputy Chairperson Bonga Makhanya said.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Spearheaded by the NYDA and set to be unveiled by Deputy President Paul Mashatile, the initiative marks a shift from small grants toward larger, equity-based and loan investments in youth-owned enterprises, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-10-30\/south-africa-to-start-135-million-fund-to-tackle-unemployment?srnd=homepage-africa\" id=\"e7748617-7194-4294-b903-859ea2aad0b1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a>.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Unlike previous NYDA programs that offered grants of up to 250,000 rand, the new fund will invest between 750,000 rand and 2 million rand per business, depending on the enterprise\u2019s needs and growth prospects. Financing will combine loans and equity stakes.\n    <\/p>\n<p>        Provincial and corporate backing<\/p>\n<p>\n        The NYDA has committed 1.2 billion rand of its reserves to capitalise the fund, alongside contributions from provincial governments, including KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and Gauteng.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The agency is also in talks with the Industrial Development Corporation, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Public Investment Corporation, and several mining companies to co-fund youth ventures as part of broader enterprise development initiatives.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The fund will target strategic sectors such as renewable energy, mining, agriculture, industrial manufacturing, and processing.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa will on Friday begin offering loans through a 2.5 billion rand ($135 million) Youth Fund aimed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-234405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}