Keynote Address at the Launch of the Reach Out Project to Support Teenage Pregnant Girls

Salutation and Acknowledgement        

• The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Hon. Janet Kataaha Museveni
• Honourable Ministers
• Your Excellencies the Ambassadors of Italy, Norway, Belgium and Egypt
• Development Partners
• UN Heads of Agencies
• Religious and Cultural leaders
• Representatives from Civil Society Organizations, Youth and Women’s groups, Private Sector and Academia
• Representatives from the various media houses

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the United Nations in Uganda, I am honoured to be with you here today and to participate in this imperative E- Meeting on teenage pregnancy.

I would like to applaud all the participants for taking time off their busy schedules during these uncertain times of COVID-19, to probe deeper into this vital matter of teenage pregnancies in Uganda today.

The statistics on teenage pregnancy both globally and in Uganda are indeed worrying; Panelists have already made the case - with all of the relevant data.

Let me just recall three facts:

• Pregnancy harms an individual girl in many ways. But it also harms her household, her community, her country and even the economy. When a pregnancy occurs, a girl’s education usually comes to an end.
• A girl without an education is a girl who lacks the skills to find a job and build a future for herself and her family and to contribute to her nation’s development.
• The World Bank estimates that Uganda’s productivity would be 15 billion US dollars higher if teenage girls delayed pregnancy until their early twenties, got a skill and worked.

The Government of Uganda has made tremendous progress and put up several policies, that should in theory, be useful to reduce adolescent pregnancies including:

• Setting the minimum age of sexual consent at 18 years;
• The defilement law against having sex with a girl under 18 years;
• Universal and Secondary Primary Education that offers free elementary and secondary education to children;
• The National Adolescent Health Policy.

However, these policies do not seem to have much effect due to lack of enforcement and lack of knowledge about the policies - by the public.

For instance, the Uganda National Adolescent Health Policy, whose main goal is to emphasize adolescent health, wellbeing, and equity, seems ineffective in the face of a practice that sends pregnant girls out of school.

This leaves us with a big question on what it really takes to end teenage pregnancy…. and it is only when we, as a nation, innovatively speak to this question that we shall be able to change the trajectory and narrative on teenage pregnancy in Uganda.

The United Nations in Uganda - through our several programs and initiatives like the Spotlight Initiative (implemented by 5 Agencies) and other joint programs like the Swedish-funded Joint Programme on GBV among others,

• has deployed targeted, large-scale investments aimed at making significant improvements in the lives of women and girls in Uganda.
• Provided women and girls with access to quality, lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services.
• Supported Community-based structures, which have become even more vital especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, have enhanced gender-based violence protection, prevention, and response efforts;
• Reinforced vulnerable populations that now have increased access to available legal, SRHR and referral services.

I would like to recognize the efforts of my colleagues, including UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women & IOM - and other agencies, in support of government in this area.

The UN also launched its first Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, which through the ‘Human Well-Being and Resilience’ Strategic Priority III - will continue protecting women and girls from patriarchal masculinities that support and perpetuate teenage pregnancies and early child marriages, among others. This is directly linked to NDP III’s Objective 4 which promotes increased productivity and well-being of the population.

I believe that we need to do more together to end teenage pregnancy in Uganda;

• Government needs to create a supportive environment to protect young people from sexual abuse and exploitation; enforce laws on rape and defilement.
• Government also needs to provide young people with age-appropriate, timely and comprehensive sexuality education. This will empower young people with critical thinking and decision-making skills so that they can make responsible choices to delay sex; or have safe & responsible relationships and avoid teenage pregnancy.
• Communities on their part need to condemn child marriage and enforce existing laws against child marriage to enable girls to delay marriage and family formation until adulthood.
• Parents and community members need to promote girl’s education including second chance education for girls who get pregnant.
• Parents and school authorities, where girls become pregnant while still in school, should implement policies to enable teenage mothers to return to school after giving birth.
• Finally, there is a need to revisit the debate on provision of SRH information and services for young people and make sexual and reproductive health information and services accessible for young people to help prevent teenage pregnancy and its complications.

As I conclude, I would like to reiterate that economic and social transformation will greatly depend on the quality of investment that the country is ready to dedicate to young people - particularly adolescent girls and boys who represent almost half of Uganda’s population.

Providing them the right skills and environment to grow will lay the strong foundation we need for transforming Uganda into a modern and prosperous country.

Thank you