Uganda parliamentary forum on youth affairs with support from German Cooperation, European union and other partners which include, National Youth Advocacy Platform(NYAP), Brac, Restless Development, Uganda cares and Western foundation for democracy has launched the 2024 National State of the Youth Report.
The state of the youth report is an annual assessment of the public and private investment in the young people of Uganda as examined through the prism of young people’s aspirations and the government’s commitments to addressing the youth issues as stated in the National Youth Manifesto and government policy documents, including the National Development Plan III.
The report further examines the gains and gaps occasioned by government policies in the five critical areas of health, education, employment, and climate change and youth political participation in decision making.
Beyond assessing government investment in young people, this report attempts to provide information to young people on existing opportunities created by the various government initiatives, laws, programmes and policies in the short, medium and long term.
According to Osborn Turyasingura, coordinator Uganda Parliamentary forum on youth affairs, as the forum, they used the state of the 2023 youth report recommendations to engage government during the drafting and passing of 2024/25 national budget. Positions were raised and they have been able to realize a lot of policy wins.
The reports shows that, in the 2024/25 budget, the ministry of Gender, labor and social and the budget committee has set aside Uganda shillings, 25billion to cater for the operationalization of the National Apprenticeship and Graduate volunteer scheme, which the young people say is great step in the right direction as far as advocacy for the National Graduate scheme Act is concerned.
Other achievements
The ministry of Finance, Planning and economic development has availed Uganda shillings 7billion to support the Jua-Kali Entrepreneurs to transition into the formal economy. The ministry of Gender will use the funds to support Jua-Kali sector.
Government has taken up the proposal to provide funding for skilling. To this aim, Uganda shillings 19.48 billion has been earmarked to National Science, Technology, Engineering and Innovation (NSTEI) to enable them operationalize the skilling center in the financial year 2024/25.
Youth Members in Parliament have lobbied Parliament’s Budget committee to avail Uganda shillings 32 billion to ministry of Gender to reinstate its flagship programmes like Youth Venture capital fund, Youth livelihood program, Special grant for Persons with Disabilities, Creation of green Jobs among others.
The student loan scheme had collapsed and was part of the proposed government merger. However, with lobbying based on recommendations of the previous report, Uganda shillings 6.7 Billion under Higher Education Students ‘Financing Board (HESFB) has been provided to support the student loan scheme. This will benefit over 1200 young people access tertiary education.
Youth in ICT
The 2024 Voluntary National Review (VNR) report notes that ‘’there has been a steady decline in the use of proportion of youth and adults (15-24years) with information and communications technology (ICT) skills across several segments. In the year 2020, most users were individuals who utilized computers for copying and transferring files (72%) and the least was a mere 6% of individuals who employed computers for purpose of creating computer programmes suing specialized programming languages. This corroborates findings of the technology and innovation report 2023 where Uganda ranks 138th out of 166 economies in the 2022 readiness for frontier technology index, with a total score of 0.22.
In this new launched report, the young people say that these statistics indicate that there is significant gap to be bridged in terms of Research and Development (R&D) investment, innovation support and ICT infrastructure development to boost the country’s competitiveness in the global ICT landscape.
However, they believe that in order to bridge these gaps and boost the country’s competitiveness the global ICT landscape, there is need to increase investment as advocated for the 2021/26 National Youth Manifesto.
In the report, young people are also concerned with digital backlash against young women and girls which they says is a growing issues that reflects deep-seated gender biases and inequalities in the online world. According to them, this backlash takes multiple forms and has significant consequences for women’s safety, mental health and participation in digital spaces.
To combat this digital backlash requires a concerted efforts from government, private sector, and civil society organizations.
For the government to tap into vast opportunities in the ICT sector, the young people recommend that a policy on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and block chain technology to be drafted, adopted and implanted as part of Uganda’s Digital Transformation Agenda.
Establishment of innovation hubs and technology parks to nurture young innovators and tech entrepreneur among others.
The government Chiefwhip, Hon. Hamson Obua who officiated the report launch asked youth in the country to practice self-preservation and also get involved in programs that will develop their livelihoods rather than fighting the state.
He further cautioned the young people to desist from being used to confront an armed personnel, through the so called struggle, as this putting their lives at risk.
Commenting on the report, Sadat Zzaga Zziwa, the National chairperson for National Youth advocacy platform (NYAP) asked the government to standardize the skilling programs to define different courses so that young people can fully benefit from the programs.
He also urged the ministry of education to liaise with development partners to ensure that they cater for underfunded priorities that exist in the budget frame work.
“When you look at this report, it highlights a lot of opportunities especially government programs of which the young people need to take of advantage.” He said.
On her part, Ms Susan Ssebadawa, documentation officers at NYAP, said that a number of youth are not sensitized about the available government financial empowerment programs and which limits them from getting them from fully benefiting from them ,she underscored the need to sensitize them so that they can also take part in these development programs.
She also encouraged the youth to be proactive, that it’s only way they will be able to find out the available programs .
Ms. Ssebadawa also urged the youth to be innovative and come up with several measures of tackling the issue of climate change
