United Nations Joint Programme of support for implementing the National Population Policy The goal of the UN joint programme on population is to ‘contribute to accelerating the onset of a beneficial demographic transition in Uganda’. The purpose of this is National, community, cultural and issue-based leadership are managing the acceleration of the down ward trend of population growth rate in Uganda. The programme will focus on four main outcomes, of which the ILO will be implementing one: youth and vulnerable groups have competitive skills, and opportunities to participate in the economy and urban development. Below is an overview of the contents of such outcome. 4.3 Outcome 3: Youth and vulnerable groups have competitive skill and opportunities to participate in the economy including urban development. This outcome area of the JP aims to address the barriers to the socio-economic development of young people particularly focusing on their participation in creation of skills, employment and livelihood improvement opportunities, including in urban geographical locations. Planned development of urban centres where most of the growing population becomes a priority for the JPP. The outcome focus will include policy dissemination, capacity building for urban planning, mainstreaming of youth issues in the key sectors and development and support slum improvement for vulnerable groups such as women. As stated in the situational analysis section, the Ugandan population is primarily a young population understanding their sexual and reproductive health issues will help to inform planning interventions for the youth. Therefore, investment in the productive engagement of young people and their participation at all levels of development is a prerequisite and a core component of the JPP to contribute to realizing the demographic bonus. The JPP will conduct a study on sexual and reproductive health of the youth to generate evidence to inform planning and youth programming. The following interventions will be implemented under this outcome: (1) Increased access to socio-economic services, infrastructure and systems for the youth. The JPP will: • Support the dissemination of the Employment Policy which is currently being considered in parliament. This will create awareness about the issue of employment and enable youth make informed decisions about their lives. The JPP will also undertake an integrated labour force survey to inform planning. • Promote skills and knowledge enhancement as well as access to employment opportunities for youth including refugees and returnees in selected districts. Building self esteem and personal goal setting for women youth to enable them get into the skills development program will be a priority. This will minimize social exclusion of young women, while specific skills development areas will be confirmed after a study on current situation of youth funding mechanism and especially opportunities for financial services for youth entrepreneurs. • Support business development and financial services to the youth, including out of school boys and girls and vulnerable households. • Strengthen the youth technical capacity relevant to labour market through the Basic Technical and Vocational Education Training (BTVET). • Support setting of MDG target on employment (2) Strengthened youth and adolescents participation in planning and decision making processes at national and sub national levels. The programme will: • Establish a youth centre with capacity to empower and deliver services. The services among others will include: ICT, governance (youth leadership and mentorship), entrepreneurship, environment protection and management, sports, reproductive health and employment. • Develop guidelines and support participation of young people and vulnerable populations in planning, decision making and consultative forums and processes. • Mainstream youth issues in the four main sectors including Ministry of Gender labour and Social Development; Ministry of Finance planning and Economic Development; Mini