Background on the problem of unemployment for young women in Uganda

Uganda has the world's largest percentage of young people under 30 – 78% – according to the UN Population Fund.

Youth unemployment in Uganda is the highest in Africa, at 62%, according to a recent study published by ActionAid.  The African Development Bank believes it could be as high as 83%.

Findings from the 2015 School to Work Transition Survey conducted by Uganda Bureau of Statistics and ILO reveal that young women (15-29 years) face a number of disadvantageous gaps in the labor market: higher unemployment rates, wage gaps, higher shares in vulnerable employment and longer school-to-work transitions.

Syda Bbumba, Minister of Gender, Labor and Social Development in the Government of Uganda, and the country’s first woman Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in an interview with the World Bank, noted,

“In the streets of Kampala, alone we have over two million literate youths without jobs and another two million illiterate youths without jobs.” 

She advocates investing in vocational job training.