Unemployment: 'Youth should change mindset'

INTERVIEW


Prof. Augustus Nuwagaba is a member of the government think-tank on improving the demographic dividend. New Vision's Carol Natukunda interviewed him on a number of issues.

 

How do you define the demographic dividend to the ordinary Uganda?

In business, the dividend refers to the profits given to the shareholders in a listed company on stock exchange Demographic dividend means the benefits derived from investing in a population. Therefore, the concept demographic dividend also means the profits a country will gain from investing in her people. The countries that have heavily benefited from demographic dividend include China, Malaysia South Korea Singapore among others. Uganda is potentially capable of reaping from demographic dividend given the number of Ugandans working in diaspora.

These are earning significantly but we still lack a formal system of benefiting from their earnings. There are so many Ugandans who are working inside Uganda but are not fully productive because of constraints ranging from lack of modern technology and equipment, attitude to work and inadequate remuneration amidst high cost of living among others. The profits derive from the fact that these countries have greatly invested in its population resulting in high productivity, increased incomes, and enhanced aggregate demand which stimulates high purchasing power that drives industry, business enterprises and economic growth.


How do you gauge Uganda’s demographic dividend?

Uganda possesses great potential for enhancing the demographic dividend. The country experiences high population growth (3.0%) per annum. The only challenge is that the population is largely young, dominated by children and youth. The Uganda median age (age that divides the population into a half) is estimated at 14 years. This means that there is high dependency ratio (the large children and youthful population which depends on a small adult productive population). But even most of this adult population is not adequately productive.

Most of the people are either unemployed or engaged in disguised employment and therefore unable to produce and generate income. Therefore they are unable to contribute to GDP or to the national wealth which is currently estimated at USD 26 Billion equivalent to UGX 87.6 Trillion.



What do you think needs to be done to ensure that our young people’s potential is harnessed?

There is need for mindset change. The young people need to appreciate their self-worth. They need to build their self-confidence, have what we call “Enteego” in Rukiga-Runyankole, Enteego literally means “target”. If you not have a target, you hit it. Secondly, the young people need to espouse and cultivate a value system based on love of work. Yes, it is good to be rich but getting rich is not achieved through things like witch craft or magic. It is hard work.

I have told people both here in Uganda and in many fora outside Uganda that when I was growing up, I could do any job provided there was money to earn. Of course, you must be engaged in acceptable forms of employment I have been employed as a cleaner, porter, casual labourer on people’s gardens, Askari on people’s buildings, waiter in hotels  and many other such jobs. The bottom line is that what you need is money and any money earned is simply legal tender. They do not write on such money where you earned it from.  So get out and work for it.

The young people also need character and moral building. Building morals is like building a house. Once there is a crack in your morals, you cannot undo it, unless you go back and demolish the part that has a crack and rebuild. So for, us, we benefited from the East African revival movement where the church played a very big role in building our characters and morals. We need religious institutions to be at the centre of child socialization. Government is very far from children scattered all over Ugandan villages and it cannot deliver on this because it does not stay with the children in homes. But the family and religious institutions are very much present and can effectively carry out this role. Government however needs to put in place mechanisms to protect children and young people from vices like defilement. Also there is need for improved service delivery, enhanced child survival, provision of quality education and human capital development.

 

What needs to be done to reap from demographic dividend?

Investing in education: There should be high focus on innovations and creativity in training which would enhance individual’s employability either for formal employment or self employment. I usually ask my students at Makerere whether anybody would come requiring their skills after graduation and if the answer is in the negative, then I advise them to enhance their capabilities through undertaking hands on skills training. If the institution or other tertiary institutions are not adequately inculcating these skills, then individual students can take it upon themselves and be creative and undertake innovative courses so that they enhance their individual competitiveness. People should be graduates of multiversity not university only.

Health: Individual competitiveness cannot be achieved when the population is highly morbid. Diseases must be highly controlled, health status improved so that people are highly productive. In Uganda’s case, we urgently need health insurance because of the cost of quality health care.  Government can provide basic health, but health insurance is a good approach that would improve inclusive access to quality health care.

Economic reforms: In Uganda, what would be required would be to develop and implement economic policies that generate inclusive growth. Such policies include enhancing access to financing capital, addressing the issue of high cost of doing business which include;  reduction of interest rates, access to agro-processing , financial deepening, creation of markets both domestic ,regional and international establishment of agricultural development bank,  affirmative distribution of industries across the country and  enhancing infrastructure and energy.

Government and accountability: to achieve the demographic dividend, there must be accountability for actions undertaken at different levels of implementation of planned actions. In Uganda’s case, the central government must carry out their functions adequately; the local government must receive adequate resources to carry out their devolved lubimbi while other governance entities must be accountable. This is when resources spent on planned activities can generate expected outcomes particularly in regard to service delivery. Any deviance say in the area of health, agriculture or education will result in low outcomes which mean high disease prevalence, low education achievement and lack of agriculture productivity which all critical ingredients for economic growth.



The government has developed several youth oriented programmes tailored at solving the employment problem. This ranges from student loan scheme, the youth fund , to the youth livelihood programme. Do you think the programmes in place are sufficient to harness the potential of young people?

There are a number of other programmes such as youth livelihood programmes (YLP). This focuses on youth both in school and outside school. This is a good programme. The only challenge could be the diversion of such well intentioned funds from the intended objectives to other non productive activities. I wish to advise the youth beneficiaries of the youth fund that they need to ensure that they engage in productive activities if the YLP is to be sustained. Government should also ensure that there is training in entrepreneurship, business skills, financial management, project planning and implementation. This should be followed by consumer education so that the recipients of these funds utilize these opportunities maximally.



Do you think there has been an impact with any of these youth programmes?

It is too early to judge whether the youth programmes have had impact. But let’s wait for a few years and then an evaluation can be conducted. If I were the youth beneficiary of the YLP, I would conduct myself in a way to make government interested to give me much more money under this programme.  The youth should therefore not nip the YLP or any other programmes in the bud.



What about the plight of the girl child?

The girl child has been a focus of many governments since the Nairobi forward looking strategies in 1985. Uganda government has put in significant efforts in terms of policies, institutions and action plans all aimed at harnessing the potential of the girl child.  There have been significant achievements e.g. the 1.5 points which has greatly enhanced parity at the university and other tertiary institutions.

There have been sustained affirmative actions in women representation in political positions at all levels, executive appointments in various critical government institutions and the results are positively fascinating. However, the main challenges remain the culture which espouses early marriage, ineffective sanctions on defilement, inadequate girl facilities in schools, lack of friendly adolescent sexual reproductive facilities and services. These have led to high school drop outs for girls.

The girl child needs life-skills in to adequately survive. These include: assertiveness, education and training, enactment of laws that can increase access to productive resources and for the government to address all forms of discrimination against women.

The girl child is still vulnerable in many ways and these include: sexual harassment, and the general belief that a girl/woman is weaker as compared to boys/ men.