MS Uganda Newsletter July 2007

Youth is our special target group

It is estimated that 380,000 young people each year are trying to enter the labour market to compete for an estimated 90,000 available jobs.

By Mads Benedictus Jørgensen, Director MS Uganda

15 July 2007

Women and youth have become special target groups in the new Country Programme Strategy 2008-12. This Newsletter focusses on the youth of Uganda.

Uganda has an estimated population of 27.4 million people, whereas 52% of the population are below 15 years, 22% are between 18-30 years, and 4.5% are above 60 years of age. It is estimated that 380,000 youth (defined as those between 18-30 years) each year are trying to enter the labour market to compete for an estimated 90,000 available jobs. This situation is increasingly leading to high levels of unemployment, frustrations and negative behaviour among the youth, for example increase in the crime rate within this age group.¹

As anywhere else in the world, youth in Uganda is not a coherent group of people. Youth are everywhere; in urban areas, in rural areas, they are farmers, university students, school drop outs, soldiers, single mothers and young fathers. Some are from well to do families, most of them are not, some have a keen interest in sports or music others are strong religious believers.

Yet, there is one common feature for most of the Ugandan youth. They take on livelihood responsibilities for themselves and their families at a very early age and become grown ups when they are teenagers and still very young. Particular the young women who become mothers at an early stage go straight from childhood to adult life. In that respect young people in Uganda lead very similar life to their age mates on the entire African continent. But they are not like most of the youth in Europe and United States who throughout their teenage years and sometimes also into their twenties lead a so called teenage life with hardly any family duties and very few adult like responsibilities.

The three themes of MS Uganda’s programme strategy 2008-12 are Building Local Democracy, Anti-Corruption and Fair Trade, and it is within these themes MS Uganda will target youth and women.

To illustrate who the Ugandan youth are, we are featuring youth voices from all ranks of life in this Newsletter. In this way we hope to let our readers in on some of the challenges the Ugandan youth faces, on their dreams and their different approaches to adulthood.

¹Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2006