UN Resident Coordinator's address at the National Commemoration of International Youth Day

His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Uganda, General Yoweri Museveni

The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Honourable Janet Museveni

The Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Honourable Betty Amongi

Honourable Ministers

Development Partners, UN Colleagues

Representatives from the Civil Society and Private Sector

Ladies and Gentlemen

All Young people

On behalf of the United Nations system in Uganda I am delighted to participate in the national commemoration of the International Youth Day. This is the first national commemoration I am participating in since I recently took on my role as the UN Resident Coordinator in Uganda. I am particularly happy to be celebrating Youth Day today, because Uganda is one of the most youthful countries in the World, with 75 percent of the population below the age of 30. This youthful population presents a lot of opportunities for the transformation of the country if we all work together to nurture them to their full potential.

We have been celebrating International Youth Day since 1999 after UN General Assembly Resolution 54/120 endorsed the recommendation made during the Conference of Ministers of Youth that 12 August be declared International Youth Day. It is a day meant to draw attention to issues surrounding the youth, for their desires and aspirations that remain unmet and also to celebrate and recognize their contributions to national development.

This year’s theme “Youth innovations for Transformation of Food Systems and Sustainable Human Health” is particularly relevant for Uganda. “Food system” refers to all those activities along the food chain – from production to processing to transportation and consumption of food. Food systems touch every aspect of human existence. The health of our food systems affects the health of our bodies, the health of our environment, our economies, and our cultures. When they function well, food systems have the power to be valuable instruments of change and bring us together as families, communities and nations.  A healthy food system is determined by the state of the natural environment, socio-cultural context, economic context, policies and institutional capacity. A healthy food system contributes to achieving the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the main aim to achieve shared prosperity for all people while protecting the planet, promoting prosperity, and sustaining transformational partnerships.

Although Uganda is generally self-sufficient in meeting the food needs of the population, food shortages still occur in pockets of the population, indicating that the food system still has some gaps. The gaps are attributed to a broad set of issues including: limited use of appropriate agricultural technology, over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture, lack of markets and market information, inadequate rural financial services, inadequate storage and processing facilities, stress food sales and inadequate buffer stocks. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food shortages are further exacerbated by low incomes, and natural disasters such as prolonged droughts and landslides. As a consequence, 12 percent of the population experiences chronic food insecurity –with women and children disproportionately affected. According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Uganda is experiencing multiple layers of malnutrition with stunting prevalence at 29 percent, wasting at 4 percent, underweight at 11 percent, overweight at 4 percent, and iron deficiency anaemia at 53 percent among children under five years of age. The COVID -19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation.

The majority of the youth are employed in the low productivity agricultural sector with low levels of technological innovation... It is therefore imperative for development stakeholders to promote these innovations as a means to transforming food systems.

Your Excellency,

The United Nations system in Uganda through the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2021 – 2025, which you launched last year, supports several innovations that support youth in contributing to transformation of food systems and sustainable human health. Permit me to highlight some of these initiatives.

UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) is implementing the Youth Inspiring Youth Initiative (YIYA).  The YIYA initiative aims at creating and promoting youth employment in the agricultural sector by fostering role models of youth agripreneurs in different districts. The UN through FAO would like to promote these youth champions/role models to become significant Ugandan agribusiness investors in their respective districts. Currently, FAO is scaling up the YIYA initiative to become a national youth mentorship programme by identifying at least 2 youth agripreneurs per district (one male and one female) who can be targeted to collaborate with all stakeholders in providing the necessary mentorship and coaching to fellow youth in Agribusiness. This model can be expanded by establishing youth agripreneurs who can act as role models at parish level. The youth champions at parish level can be very instrumental in the implementation the new government parish development model.

UN Development Programmes (UNDP) Youth4Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility is helping youth-led enterprises recover from COVID-19 with a strong focus on driving innovation in tourism, agriculture and food systems sector, among others. The five-year