By Patricia Munabi Babiiha
Last week, Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate the International Youth Day, a day that designated by the United Nations in 1999 to draw attention to issues affecting the youth worldwide. The theme for 2021 is, ‘Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.”
With 54% of Uganda’s population below 18 years and 19 % aged between 18-30, according to the latest Uganda National Household Survey, it is clear that the youth are at the heart of the socio-economic transformation of this country. It is not an exaggeration to say that the country belongs to them, the future and present is, indeed theirs. How we as a nation help our children and our children’s children to realise their greatest possible human potential in a cut-throat competitive world should be of concern to us as leaders at all levels in whichever sphere of influence we occupy.
The thinking behind this year’s theme is to highlight the fact that the success of global efforts in transforming food security cannot be achieved without the full and active participation of young people. The theme is particularly pertinent because youth in Uganda are also faced with challenges like climate change and its attendant effects on agricultural output, food security and a spiraling population growth rate, a combination of whichaffects the standard of living. All these have been exacerbated by the debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), we strongly believe in a just and fair society. If youth are left behind, then a just and fair society remains a pipe dream.
As we celebrate the International Youth Day, we take the opportunity to challenge the government to put focus on areas that are very crucial to the development of our young people into prosperous members of society.
It is our considered view that the government should take drastic measures to address negative social practices in our society that continue to derail the transformation of our young people-especially girls. There must be deliberate efforts to tackle harmful practices like Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Child Labour and Child Marriages and lack of access to social services which inhibit the realisation of our young people’s full potential.
We cannot afford to have a country where 60% of adolescents aged between 10-19 years have experienced physical violence, 42% have had a dose of emotional violence, 10% gone through sexual violence while some 1% of girls aged between 15-19 years are victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Similarly, in the 21st century, it is unacceptable that one in four teenage girls in Uganda aged 15-19 have had a child or are pregnant while 42% of all the pregnancies among adolescents are unintended. It is important for government and all other stakeholders to continually work towards addressing the root causes of these realities in our country.
In terms of education, government must be put to task to ramp up efforts to ensure that our young people access quality education for them to have a fighting chance in a world where employment is hard to come by. Youth are disproportionately affected by the problem of unemployment. State actors should be particularly interested in addressing the problem of youth unemployment because it poses grave political, social and economic challenges.
Accordingly, this year’s International Youth Day theme should be a loud reminder to government to double its efforts in addressing the bottlenecks that impede the youth of Uganda from achieving their potential. Only then can we meaningfully move close to achieving the spirit of the theme, ‘Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.”
Patricia Munabi Babiiha is the Executive Director of the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE).
