STATEMENT BY
THE MINISTER OF GENDER, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT,
HAJAT JANAT BALUNZI MUKWAYA (UGANDA)

09/08/1998

I do salute you and bring you warm greetings and love from the people of the Republic of Uganda.

The three themes of the International Youth Year; participation, development and peace are more relevant to us today than ever before. It is for this reason that I feel that it is important for us to fully concretise mechanisms, ways and means through which the youth in our Countries can effectively participate in decision making and determining their own destiny and the destiny of their Countries. For this participation to be meaningful, the youth must be empowered and must be enabled to have confidence in themselves. They must know that just as they have a right to make decisions, they also have an obligation to be responsible for the consequences of their decisions. Concrete programs in decision making, interpersonal skills/public relations skills, communication skills plus of course entrepreneurs

skills, are very important in ensuring that we have a confident youth population on which we can rely and build as we move to and through the next millennium.

As we move towards the Adoption of the Lisbon Declaration on Youth Policies and Programs, it is pertinent that we try as much as possible to ensure that we strengthen the structure that we have established in our Countries. In Uganda, for example, National Youth Councils are in place with the objective of:

-Organizing the youth of Uganda in a unified body;

-Enabling the youth engage in activities that are of benefit to them and the nation ; and

-Enabling the youth fight against any kind of manipulation.

Ladies and gentlemen for those objectives to be fully realized there is an urgent need of ensuring that our youth councils are strengthened, they need resources, they need exposure and they need our unreserved political commitment and will.

Dear colleagues, I have no doubt in my mind that this forum will seriously address the question of strengthening and empowering our youth structures.

Many of my colleagues from less developed Countries will agree with me that the majority of the youth (in Uganda’s case over 60%) leave in rural areas and constitute a big percentage of active labour force, especially in agriculture but also in other sections. Despite their potential resource to national development, our youth, especially in rural; areas continue to live marginalized lives. They are indeed among the most vulnerable social groups with limited access to social service like education and health, lack of useful basic information and lack of recreational and counseling services. Our task is, therefore, to explore ways and means of making life for the rural youth palatable. How do we reach the rural youth with programs and services? How do we empower a rural youth to have confidence in him or herself? How do we make an illiterate rural youth at least functionally literate? How do we provide health services that are youth friendly? Do we also recognize the gender disparities in our programs?

Do we appreciate the fact that young women have greater difficulties than young men? How then do we close the gender gaps in the programs we design?

Ladies and gentlemen the issue of promotion of adolescent reproductive life need our serious consideration. We cannot afford to continue putting it at the peripheral. Our youth today like never before have got myriad reproductive problems. We need to discuss the issue - we need to find solutions.

I am also concerned about the unemployment rate in our Countries. With technological advancement, the youth have been denied employment opportunities - machines have replaced human beings. How then do we proceed?

How do we ensure that the youth play an active role in the global concern of environmental protection? How can we be sure of a hazard free environment?

In the face of restructuring of our economies, how do we protect our youth from economic structural adjustment shocks?

How do we fill the gap between the have and the have nots? On the question of globalization - how prepared are we to address its threats as we appreciate its hopes and advantages?

Dear Colleagues we must also seriously address the question of land reforms in our Countries. How do we enable our youth to have access to land - in fact how do we enable our young girls and boys own the land that they till? I am glad to report that in Uganda we have just concluded this through the enactment of a new law to govern land tenure. I believe we can all do it for the good of our youth and our nations as a whole.

I strongly believe that without finding answers to those pertinent questions, I can clearly see how we will instead continue to grapple in the dark and how we will have caused unforgivable sin to not only the generation of today but to the generations to come.

Mr/Madam President, Dear Colleagues; allow me also mention that there is no better way of empowering the youth than involving them in

formulation, implementation of national plans and programs. Do our youth see themselves as part and parcel of the development trends in their Countries? Or do they see themselves as spectators of the development in their Countries?

In Uganda we have ensured that the youth are not only represented in the National Legislature but also represented at all levels of local Government. We believe that through this representation the youth are able to see themselves as part and parcel of the national and local development machineries. And we trust that the youth can use the strength of their

numbers and energies to take a lead position in the development of their Country.

On peace, dear colleagues, it would be very falacious if we did not emphasize the key role that our youth play in ensuring peace in the diaspora. You perhaps know better than I do that in reconciliations and struggles, the World over the youth have been and continue to be at the forefront. We must, therefore, be seriously concerned about the reasons for which the youth are involved in a specific struggle.

Is it for the good of the nation that they are fighting? Are they concerned by the cause for which they are fighting? Or they are simply used? Have we development programs that arouse the political consciousness of our youth? What about their analytical skills?

Mr/Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen; I seriously trust that those fears of mine will in one way or the other be examined and re-examined in the course of this forum. Surely we do deserve a better World, a World which will be run not by us but by our youth. The skills, the empowerment, or the programs, policies and plans that we do put in place for our youth will indeed determine the type of World we expect in the future.

I thank you.

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY