High Level Validation Workshop on Employment Diagnostic Analysis (EDA)

Kampala/Dar es salaam (ILO News): The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda, is organizing on 25 April 2018, in Kampala, a high level workshop to secure tripartite consensus on the Employment Diagnostic Analysis (EDA) recommendations, for achieving job-rich economic growth and decent employment for Ugandans. The workshop is also aimed at raising tripartite awareness on the EDA and validating the EDA report.

The workshop, to be officiated by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda, Rt. Hon. Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda will be attended by Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, representatives from the Private Sector, workers’ and employers’ organizations, the academia, and development partners.

The EDA study was undertaken with support from the Swedish Embassy in Uganda and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2017 to explore the nature of the deficiency of productive employment and to identify the constraints on and opportunities for enhancing inclusive job-rich growth. It proposes a number of interventions towards job rich growth and productive employment including making employment a key objective of monetary, fiscal, trade and investment policies, enhancing the role of the state in the productive sectors of the economy especially by supporting sectors with high employment intensity of growth, support to infant indigenous industries and skills development e.g. through on the job training programmes, among others.

Uganda’s current total population according to the 2014 population census report, stands at 34.9 million people and is projected to grow to 46.7 million by 2025.

According to the Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) 2012/13 report, the country’s unemployment rate stood at 9.4 percent in 2012. The ILO’s School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS, 2015), indicates that Uganda’s overall youth unemployment rate is 6.5 percent (5.5 percent for men and 7.4 percent for women). It also records the unemployment rate at 10 percent for urban youth compared to the rural youth at 5 percent.