It is no secret that Uganda has a very young population, with over 70 per cent below 30 years.
This shows the dependency rate and the challenges thereof. One major challenge is this growing young population is not in tandem with the job opportunities available on the market and, therefore, the high youth unemployment rate to date.
However, the good news is that there is an opportunity for Uganda to incorporate the unemployed youths into the workforce by building entrepreneurship support structures.
These structures include incubation hubs where entrepreneurs are nurtured in a suit- able environment that supports co-creation, knowledge sharing and communities. The other structures are business development centers; universities; research institutes to build better technologies; favourable policies; and government contracting and financing.
How do innovation programs play a role in the mitigation of youth unemployment?
It may not be the ‘silver bullet’ to the problem of youth unemployment but innovation programs have played a significant role in mitigating youth unemployment through expert mentorship, business and technical training, seed funding, and market access, to mention a few.
Recently, the “Up Accelerate”, an innovation program that seeks to support young entrepreneurs to address challenges in sexual reproduction health, was inaugurated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in partnership with Outbox, a Ugandan technology entrepreneurship hub.
The ongoing program is offering business and technical training, seed funding, and access to expert mentors to support all the young people who will seize the opportunity to explore new ways to engage and tackle sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges in Uganda.
An evaluation of the Health Sector Strategic Investment Plan 2010/11 to 2014/15 revealed that the institutional maternal mortality ratio decreased by 40 per cent, yet numbers remain high at 118 deaths per 100,000 deliveries.
This indicates inadequate quality of care or lack of lifesaving emergency obstetrics and newborn care services in these facilities, among other things. These challenges are being experienced by mostly teenage and adolescent mothers. Who then is better equipped to understand and address this challenge except the young people themselves?
UNFPA and Outbox, therefore, through “Up Accelerate”, have created a platform whereby young people can build solutions for fellow young people to address sexual reproductive health issues for which the youth are the major victims. In so doing, they have also provided a conducive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation to support youth employment.
Ensibuko (also translated as “the root”) is a success story of a team of young people who participated in an ICT for agriculture innovation program with an idea to build a management information system for savings and credit cooperatives (Saccos) to promote transparency and accountability through better recordkeeping.
The mobile and web application enables Saccos of smallholder rural farmers to capture and view their savings transaction records. Today, Ensibuko employs 15 people and has raised up to Shs 1.8 billion in funding from a mentor. The team generates revenue of over Shs 35 million per month.
Innovation programs help with the “how- to” build for and “go-to market”. Access to markets is a key impediment for young entrepreneurs, one that is normally forgotten. It is assumed that once one obtains funding and a product that works well, they can easily get customers.
Innovation programs provide market access through industry men- tors and partner networks who understand the market and are willing to assist entre- preneurs. Sometimes they go an extra mile to provide investment capital to ensure a team succeeds.
WinSenga is an example of a three-man team of Ugandan youths who participated and won an innovation program in 2012 to develop a low-cost mobile pregnancy scan machine for expectant mothers. The program offered access to a ready market in Chile where WinSenga is piloting the innovation.
Through innovation programs like the “Up Accelerate”, young people have an opportunity to network with stakeholders such as development organisations, innovation hubs, governments, civil society organisations and fellow entrepreneurs as they tackle these pressing challenges.
They have an opportunity to build on top of what various stakeholders have already done through these collaborations to join the employment world.
The author is founder and team leader at Outbox