____________

The government will this year send two Ugandan youths to take part in the United Nations General Assembly business this September.

The 79th session of the UN General Assembly will open on September 10 and run until September 24 in the US city of New York.

The two Ugandans were selected from a group of 1,000 applicants under the African United Nations Youth delegates programme, which features Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Sudan.

The selected youths will, as part of the programme, take part in regional training in three regional countries: Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan.

This training will begin in April, according to Linda Asaba, the country programme coordinator, who also heads the United Nations Association of Uganda (UNAU). 

"After the trainings, the youths will come up with mandates that have demands that reflect the young people in several countries and present these at the General Assembly," she said.

She made the revelation in Ntinda on Friday (March 8) during the pass-out of 20 youth who had gone through a week's rigorous training enlightening them about the workings of the United Nations. 

Asaba said the duo is the second cohort of youth to represent Uganda at the UN, with the first doing so in 2013. 

The programme is one of the United Nations' efforts to improve the representation of youth in national and international affairs. 

According to Asaba, the Global South (developing countries, including Uganda) have the least representation of young people in international affairs and the programme is aimed at correcting this.

The programme is funded by Germany's foreign affairs ministry.

"When they are there [at the UN], they usually have side events where they talk to different ambassadors, and presidents in the mandates they are looking at. The ones last year were looking at unemployment and youth participation," said Asaba.