INTRODUCTION
At such a time when our nation is engulfed in record
unemployment rates, and our position continues to dwindle among development
indicators, the hope initiative club is redefining the future of this nation.
We cannot help but appreciate the visionary management of the Centre for constitutional
government and all members of their staff, we owe many things to come, to their
selfless efforts towards the involvement of young people in processes, programs
and debates that set precedent for the leadership module this country will take
in the near future.
For the different university chapters present here today, my hope
is that the attendance of these forums does not become to us, a ritual
exercise, but rather a reflection mechanism towards the country where we want
and where we want it to go from our generation, henceforth. It is my discrete
honor to share with you thoughts on the subject of unemployment from the
social, political and economic dimension to enable us contextualize the need in
addressing this problem as a country, but more importantly, as a generation.
CONTEXT ANALYSIS
Our country has achieved a status of damnation when it comes
to the question of employment. Young people have resorted to luck oriented
means of earning a living as opposed to the work oriented means.
They seek their luck in sports betting, political commentary
and appropriate branding like the poor youth or any availed means that seems to
present a future of some form of livelihood, by this I mean the crime
preventers in their thousands. On wonders how we got here. How that a nation so endowed with natural
resources spanning from lakes to forest cover, from mining fields to fertile
soils cannot seem to translate the same into opportunities for job creation. In
1990, at the time of our salvation from anarchy of political history with
regard to the gun rule, there was a genuine feeling that the country was on a
forward path to economic development which include the expansion of employment
opportunities in economic activities in deafening silence of guns through the
peace then achieved. At about the same time, the World Bank issued structural
re-adjustment policies for low developed countries that would limit government
expenditure to core administrative means and liberalize the economy to be
private sector driven. Of interest to me is the particular idea by the World
Bank that government should invest more money in primary rather than tertiary
education.
Our nation moved from necessity in the target of employment that
includes skills development and economic research to inform investment for
greater employment opportunity creation; to provision of basic education,
incapable of transformational power to a nation in dire need of developmental
agenda. As such, the challenges of the nation took an economic trend with
regard to employment opportunity creation and development.
As the nation transitioned from a political muddle termed
‘the movement system’ where we had all people as members of the movement, yet
there were celebrations of people crossing into the movement, but this is
besides the discussion. The period of transformation for this nation from a
single party system to a multi-party dispensation came with implications on the
part of political organisations and parties, to provide policy alternatives and
not simply rhetoric abilities for their disagreements with government proposals
and positions on issues in the country, including the issues of institutional
growth, economic policy and of particular interest to us, policies on
employment.
Today therefore, we seek to interrogate the different
political players’ offers with regard to the question of unemployment and
hopefully stir up discussion from the able panel meant to discuss the current
state of the employment in our nation.
MANIFESTO PREVIEWS
It is important to start by noting that the youth through
their various organisations, political and civic, placed as the first issue in
the recently adopted national youth manifesto at the national youth festival.
Whereas the government rotates around consolidation of wealth
creation schemes and enhancement of access to startup initiatives like the
youth livelihood fund, it does not seem to present more solutions to the nation
than in the notion of investment. It is indeed true that investment is an
indisputable route to availing of jobs, we cannot ignore the fact that in our
country’s case, it is an uphill task to inspire enough local investment because
of the inequality rate and tax policies. Other initiatives of funding, that I
have hinted on above have been an interesting failure, because economic capital
is handed to people without management ability to run an effective economic
venture, let alone have more than just an idea to warrant their funding. The
reformed ten point program of the NRM highlights two key indicators of will,
one is socio-economic transformation towards increasing markets and two ICT
enhancement to tap into new employment opportunities for young people. These if
pursued fully, would be a big step in the right direction, however though; it
seems more and more apparent that the challenge of the establishment is not
policy formulation but implementation.
The FDC on the other hand believes that the country needs to
heavily support local investment, it subscribes to the notion that local
capacity must outcompete foreign presence. The challenge with this position in
my opinion is the idealism in it. To assume that Uganda provides a suitable
environment by alienation of self from international relations presented by
FDIs and regional and continental trading and development blocks like the EAC,
the COMESA , the great lakes region and
IGAD, would be to at least, stir great debates of conflicts of interest.
However though, the idea of local investment and growth of such capacity is a noble
aspiration in a fight to get a country out of an unemployment catastrophe.
The Go-Forward movement, has preferred to own monopoly over
provision of 21st century jobs, as stated in their 8-point program,
we would fault to pre-empt what it was they meant before looking at their
detailed manifesto, so I will restrict myself to what is known to common men,
such as i.
I will summarise the aspirations of other players subscribed
under the TDA as of the TDA protocol, to suspend taxation on local investment
to a degree that facilitates their rapid emanation and growth for a given
period of time. These are noble aspirations, but the question of pragmatism
comes out again. And the concept of TDA is only understood when discussed in
the totality of it’s the protocol.
I hope this discussion today, shall give us insights into
what we as young people are yet to see, and perhaps forge ideas into a future
that we seem oblivious to. I look forward to an interesting intellectual
discourse by the panelists as we together join efforts to address a common
man’s problem, that of unemployment.
WE BUILD FOR THE FUTURE
……………………………………………………
JACOB EYERU
Eyjaco3@gmail.com
MEMBER, HOPE INITIATIVE CLUB
MAKERERE.
·
PRESENTATION
FOR THE HOPE INITIATIVE DIALOGUE HELD AT MAKERERE UNIVERSITY ON 25th/9/2015
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