Remarks by UN Resident Coordinator at National Commemoration of International Youth Day

Your Excellency, the President of the Republic of Uganda

Your Excellency, the Vice President of the Republic of Uganda

Honourable Ministers

Honourable Members of Parliament

District Leaders

Religious and Cultural Leaders

Development Partners with Special Recognition to the World Bank Country Manager,

UN Colleagues

The Youth we are celebrating today

Ladies and Gentlemen

Warm greetings to all.

On behalf of the United Nations System in Uganda, I am very happy to be here today as we commemorate International Youth Day.

I thank the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development for inviting the United Nations to be part of this event. The theme Intergenerational Solidarity: The Role of Youth in the Implementation of the Parish Development Model.

This is an important theme to reflect on to achieve the the National Development Goals,  which Uganda needs to leverage, to realize the full potential of all generations leaving none behind, especially not the bulk of its population.   

I will highlight three challenges – among many - concerning young people that the UN family is concerned about. And no doubt this overlaps with what all constituents are concerned about.  

The first area of concern is Employment

With a population of close to 80% under 30, with over 700,000 young people entering the job market every year to compete for 238,000 (34 percent) available jobs[1], all stakeholders, government and non-government, must invest in developing an ecosystem that can better support young people to make their own jobs.

We applaud the Government for the regulatory measures and innovative initiatives that have recently been implemented to stimulate and promote the social and economic transformation of the young people. Initiatives such as the Youth Venture Capital Fund (YVCF), Youth Livelihoods Programme (YLP), and the Presidential Initiative on Wealth and Job Creation (Emyooga) have played a significant role in enabling young people to make meaningful contributions to solving Uganda’s development challenges and creating livelihoods for themselves. We also see the Parish Development Model as a potential vehicle for accelerating wealth and job creation among the youth.

The United Nations system has made a deliberate effort as part of its development cooperation in Uganda, to accompany these efforts and invest in initiatives that empower young people through skilling, innovation, and entrepreneurship. For example, UNCDF’s Support to Agricultural Revitalization and Transformation (START) facility, is providing affordable finance to agribusiness SMEs that have created employment opportunities for over 20,000 young people in rural Uganda. Similarly, the Youth4Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility by UNDP has partnered with nearly 50 youth-owned and focused enterprises in agriculture, agribusiness and tourism, to promote innovation. And of course other development partners such as the World Bank are deeply engaged in this area as well.

While the combined efforts are encouraging, there is still so much more to be done  to address the issue of employment.  The efforts are still scattered. The scale is small compared to the challenge. We need to link all these efforts better and we need much bigger scale. And better structures to come together through which to support enabling policies that better nourish an ecosystem here in Uganda that enables young people to create their own jobs, an ecosystem that encourages entrepreneurship more than it presently does. 

The second are of concern is Social protection

Many will agree, these years have been very trying – the pandemic, wars, the rising prices, extreme weather events. And Uganda has not experienced her full share of the challenges (even though she might have fared much better in some aspects of it such as much less lives lost in the pandemic. And on the high prices  - while none of us are appreciating the higher prices for onions, tomatoes and petrol, thankfully our food security is not nearly as impacted as those of our brothers and sisters on other parts of the world).  Despite evident efforts and development progress made over the past years, Ugandan youth – especially girls-  are truly being put to the test. They were disproportionately affected by the negative effects of the pandemic and now this situation of high prices and extreme weather events. The most vulnerable among them need better protection. We need to invest more in national social protection systems.  Perhaps more emphasis on labour intensive public works programmes? Perhaps just better linking the current programmes in place and developing the infrastructure needed to expand as more resources become available? While the fiscal space in now tight, there may be available room to better support the most vulnerable with some of the many challenges we are going through.  

The third are of concern is Health and Education

Another area of concern to the UN family is health and education and how we move towards universal access to quality education and health care services for all and also how to continuously decrease the financial burden of these services on the population (even while acknowledging the tight fiscal space). We commend the increased budget allocations for human capital development.  We worry about non communicable diseases, risky behavior and the rates of HIV infections among young people, especially young girls. Addressing these in mostly within the realm of mindset change, helping young people develop the habits they need for a healthy and productive life. We hope we all put better energy into these prevention activities, because as the saying goes - prevention is cheaper and better that cure.

And as I conclude, I look forward to how the UN system will practically interface with the Government and her other development partners to address these and other issues affecting youth.   Our ideas are only as good as the planning processes and implementation mechanisms we put in place to make them manifest. And I look forward to Programme Working Groups and other key aspects of the National Development Plan III infrastructure operationalised. And at the decentralised level, the Parish Development Model can be the vehicle through which greater jobs, social protection mechanisms and mindset change is delivered. We believe in the potential of the Parish Development Model. Now we need to make it manifest.

Mr. President, honourable members, Your UN family in Uganda renews its pledge of  continued commitment and partnership in supporting the national development efforts to improve the lives of young people, expand the current development progress and get to vision 2040. And we continue looking forward to your collective guidance on this journey.

Thank you.

[1] National Planning Authority. Third National Development Plan (NDPIII)