Why Uganda’s Youth Bulge is a blessing than a burden

Young people account for 40 percent of the world’s population – the largest youth generation in human history – but they are disproportionately affected by unemployment. This is a persistent problem. Approximately 30 percent of young people are not in employment, training or education, and around the world, young women are worse off. We need to act now, and we need to act together if we are going to realize the significant opportunities presented by this many young people today

Every 12th August of each year Uganda joins the rest of the world in the commemoration of International Youth Day. The Day was declared following the recommendations made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) and approved in 1999 under the 54th UN General Assembly under Resolution 54/120 of the General Assembly. The commemoration of IYD around the world is intended to raise awareness about the state of youth at all levels. It is a space where government, evaluates efforts and interventions made to transform the lives of the youth in the country.

Here in Uganda, this year`s celebrations were held at St. Gonzaga Gonza Primary School in Kagoma district under the UN proposed theme “Transforming Education” though Uganda modified it to” the theme “Transforming Education for Responsible Citizenship and Employment Creation” to qualify it into the national context.

The theme enjoins government and all stakeholders to focus on an education and training system that is pragmatic, produces hands-on skilled people; imparts relevant soft skills; empowers the mind to think in an independent manner; ensures civic competence; imparts financial literacy and liberates people from dependency to creation of wealth and promotion of self-reliance.

Youth is a socially constructed intermediary phase that stands between childhood and adulthood. UNICEF generally defines youth as being between the ages of 15 and 24 years old.

Under the current laws and conventions, a Youth in Uganda is someone below 35 years of age.

Uganda`s youths are the second youngest population in the world, with 77% of its population being under 30 years of age. There are 7,310,386 youth from the ages of 15–24 years of age living in Uganda.

In order to operationalize the words of the late Mzee Nelson Mandela who rightly said that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”  and that of the re-known management guru Peter Drucker who postulated that “ Today knowledge has power, it controls access to opportunity and advancement”.

Government has come up with a number of ways to resolve the problem of youth unemployment through programs such as wealth creation and commitment to service delivery among others, these have been, however, frustrated due to vices such as corruption, nepotism, and bureaucracy and if unchecked will undermine all good-intentioned initiatives to answer the question of the youth unemployment

The government of Uganda took a bold step to make sure the youths in Uganda are educated, through UPE/USE and also through the student’s loan scheme (23.4bn), to make sure that students can access university education and pay later when they begin work. It’s for this reason that our literacy levels have jumped to 78.4% by 2018. The liberalization of education sector greatly improved the access to education, we now have 11 public universities, and 38 private and military universities.

The government also has immunized all the children below 5yrs, sensitized people on killer diseases, improved access to Medicare through the establishment of health care 2, 3 an 4s that brought healthcare closer to the people and now our life expectancy has increased to 63%. Yes, there are still challenges regarding health care provision in Uganda, but we have taken a big leap in that area.

The youths have also been empowered through life skills development and vocational training, a deliberate government program for skilling the youths after school, to equip them with skills that they would be in need. There is also the presidential initiative which is intended to provide startup capital to artisan youths in Kampala and neighboring areas, and this initiative by the president is reaping high dividends.

The government realized that the wellbeing and prosperity of nations and young people are dependent more than ever before on the quality of skills, that education and training can provide, and failing to meet this need would be a waste of human potential and economic power. At such times, we are reminded that education is not only about making sure all children can attend school. It is about setting young people up for life, by giving them the opportunities to create or find decent work; earn a living, contribute to their communities and societies and fulfill their potential. Ultimately, it is about helping nurture the workforce needed to grow our economies.

The youth livelihood program which has so far benefited close to 300000 youths is another government program aimed at empowering the youths and enhance their earning, there has been positives with this program and we should encourage and guide our young one on how to access and utilize the funds efficiently,  there were few challenges initially that have long been rectified, and so far so good and many youth groups and individual youths can testify how this program has improved their lives.

The youths can also exploit several programs that government has initiated in order to improve wellbeing of its people and also take personal initiatives to better their lives knowing that youthfulness is just a transition and not a permanent stage, and one shouldn’t waste a lot of terms singing am youth but use the energy to work for his future.

All stakeholders, should focus their attention in empowering these youths, through sensitization drives, education, skills transfer and providing them with solutions that can better their lives,  instead of mobilizing them for political activism, participation in governance and regime change, but mobilize them in income generation, skills training and teaching them the spirit of hard work and sacrifice for national development.

Global youth unemployment is a growing global challenge. When young workers are not able to connect to the labor market, it profoundly impacts their ability to participate fully in the economy, and threatens their social and economic future, so that working with employers is key to opening more job opportunities for youth, creating better matches for employers and young workers, and making sure that young people have the support they need to succeed. By expanding access to labor market opportunities for youth and helping companies derive value from hiring from diverse pools of youth talent, we see the potential to not only address youth unemployment at scale—but to build more inclusive economies.

The young people are by inclination more entrepreneurial than adults – and we now know that of all the interventions governments, private sector and civil society implement to address youth employment, providing support to early entrepreneurs is the most effective, the good news is that experience and evidence increasingly indicate that we already have some of the policy and program responses in our arsenal to tackle youth employment now.

The industrialization drive, infrastructure, and energy projects that the government has embarked on are geared towards answering unemployment challenges facing the country and especially among the youths. However the Success, sustainability, and scale in reaching full youth employment will not be possible without collaboration involving government and public institutions at all levels, this is something that shouldn’t be left only to government to solve but we all stakeholders, after all, we are the ones that bring forth these youths, so we are all equally responsible for their wellbeing.

Fortunately, we still have time to redeem the situation and our redemption lies in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). This is the education that equips the youth with practical skills. For this kind of education to meet its purpose, it should be incorporated into the conventional education system so that every student who graduates, but fails to get into formal employment, can choose to startup own business.

This is why TVET is important because it imparts the much-needed skills in the youth. It will also meet society’s demand for competent plumbers, mechanics, hairdressers, tailors, carpenters, and electricians, among others. It equally helps the country to reverse the trend of unemployment. But for this to happen, the government should increase domestic funding for TVET. Parents should also play a role by encouraging their children to take on vocational courses besides their professional studies given that vocational skills carry a lot of weight if included in the curriculum Vitae.

So, given the high level of youth unemployment, Uganda is seated on a time bomb, if a large number of youths find themselves redundant, they will become an economic burden, not only to their families but also to the country. As the adage goes, ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop’. Therefore, redundancy is likely to lead to disruption of the peace. As a country, we need to appreciate the fact that young people are important in helping Uganda achieve the dream of becoming a middle-income country by 2020. It will also help the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. It is for this reason that we should develop policies and programs that support technical education training.

As stakeholders, we need to encourage entrepreneurship, reassessing the Value of unpaid Internships, reevaluating the distribution of welfare, all secondary schools should have active partnerships with employers, earlier Career Guidance, a new standard for work experience, and inculcate work ethics among our young ones, as we discourage them from engaging in unproductive activities.

The ministry of ICT needs to embrace a broader approach in capacity and skills development by helping partners to design strategies, build systems, implementation planning and training of personnel for productivity enhancement, say banking on an emerging technology sector. The program of funding youths with innovations in ICT is a welcome move that will go a long way in encouraging innovations and it should be encouraged and more funds availed to cover a wide spectrum of young innovators.

The Internet and its benefits could be an open window to the elusive jobs. The world has become a single global village. The skilled but unemployed youth need to be supported to harness the benefits in the technology sector, specifically the use of strategic plans to channel this knowledge into a commodity that can be sold.

We should borrow a leaf from, Rwanda, South Africa where the booming technology sector is becoming a huge service export, especially to the emerging markets in Sub-Saharan Africa that need software solutions.

Most software banking solutions used by different banks are imported from India and South Africa. Some Ugandan banks outsource their ICT issues from S. Africa.

Hundreds of youth are busy solving and resolving bank queries happening other countries, in the comfort of their seats from their respective ICT offices

The government should establish youth clubs all over the country. Those clubs are intended to provide education and social services and aim to discourage young persons from visiting unsuitable places or hanging around streets.

The government should develop policies and implement programs that can enable youths to employ themselves in career through enterprise creation. Youth should embrace the entrepreneurship drive as it would reduce ignorance that is fueling unemployment in Uganda. The youth should learn how to save thus knowing how to save and invest is important for a successful enterprise and would assist in the reduction of the high youth unemployment problem.

Records show that youths who fail to get jobs to end up in urban slums and streets and engage in unproductive activities like prostitution, thuggery, drugs and substance abuse. Many young people experience serious difficulties during this transition period.

The implications of unemployment for young people may include poverty, migration to urban areas, homelessness and housing problems, rising crime rates in some areas, lack of youth participation in society and low morale among young people. Implications that have an impact on young women are adolescent prostitution and higher rates of teenage pregnancies. Young women may find their life changes particularly limited.

Unless Uganda scales up her efforts to create jobs, the youth will find their way into crime and armed conflict given the challenges they face in the labor market.

Lastly, if this youths bulge is appreciated as an opportunity, we will go a long way to harness that free energy they have for national development and rescue them from the vanguards of redundancy and dependency and we will have a formidable workforce.

For God and The Great Pearl