Address / Plot 99C, Old Mbale Road, Pamba, Western Division, Soroti Municipality, Soroti District
Telephone Number(s) / +256 784893749
E-mail Address /
Web Address / or
Facebook Page /
Contact person / Joseph Apetu (Programs Manager)
Contact Person, Phone number / +256755014515
Year organization was registered / 2015
Legal status of the organization / Community Based Organisation
Registration Number / 304
Organization’s mission statement/purpose & primary sectors of the organization’s operation / Vision:- a Uganda without poverty
Mission:- Empowering young people with practical skills for job creation
Core services and capabilities:- Livelihoods, Education and training, job creation and enterprise development, Environment and climate change, Public health and sanitation, Entrepreneurship and financial management, agriculture and forestry, Capacity building, Human rights advocacy
Bank details / Name and address of the bank:
Bank Name: Barclays Bank of Uganda Ltd
Branch Name: Soroti Branch
Address: Plot 2 Hannington Road, P.O.Box 7101, Kampala, Uganda
Number and name of the bank account:
Account Name: Innovative Youth Action Uganda
Account number: 6004668535
Shift Code: BARCUGKX
The GirlsPROJECT
Green Jobs for Girls and Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Uganda
[Teso Sub Region]
Contents
- The Rationale
- National Context Challenges
- Country Background
- Labour Market Outcomes of young females
- Objectives of the project
- Delivering the Training
- Indicating the Project Site
- Selecting Participants
- Administrating the Project
- Scheduling the Training
- Budgeting
- Expected Benefit of the Project
- MonitoringandEvaluating the Project
The Rationale
There is wide consensus that generating green jobs foryoung females are essential inputs for sustainable economic development. This conclusion stems from the fact that theimprovementof socio-economic outcomes for girls and young women is of central importance, not only to the beneficiaries themselves, but also to their communities and the next generation (Chaaban and Cunningham, 2011[1]). With due emphasis of this significance, coordinated polices and painstaking efforts have been taken worldwide to improve the living standards of women over the past several decades. Consequently,comparing to 25 years ago, the lives of women around the world have improved dramatically(World Bank, 2011[2]). This can be partially indicated by the fact that women have made unprecedented gains in education, health, rights and access to jobs and livelihoods in many regions of the world, particularly in advanced economies. It is also very common to observe that more countries than ever guarantee equal rights in property, marriage, and other domains. Women are using their education to participate more in the labour force, and now represent for 40 percent of the global labour force (ILO, 2011[3]).
Notwithstanding the progress, in most developing countries, disparities remain high in a range of socio-economic indicators. In many of developing countries, girls do not have the opportunity to become fully functioning members of the society and contribute less than their potential to the economy. World Bank (2011[4]) states that women are more likely to die—relative to males—in many low- and middle-income countries than their counterparts in rich countries, especially in childhood and during their reproductive years.Report of the United Nations Population Fund (2005[5]) on its side showsthatfor lack of adequate knowledge on their sexual and reproductive rights, one-quarter to one-half of girls in developing counties become mothers before age 18 and drop out from schools, which put them in turn into further intergenerational cycle of abject poverty.
The situation is particularly very challenging in the case of African countries as young female particularly face a wide range of socio-economic constraintswithin and outside of their families. For example, in Mozambique, Malawi, Niger, Chad, Uganda, and Gabon between 40-50% of female youth (15-24) had already given birth at least once(AfDB, 2011[6]).Additionally, in many parts of the continent completing primary and secondary school enrolments for girls remain much lower than for boys (see Guarcello et al., 2007[7]).Unemployment rates of young females have also been persistently high and female labour force participation comparing boys is very low. AFDB, (2011[8]) estimates that, on average, labour force participation rate in Africa is 78.3% for men vs. 61% for women; though 90% of them are still in the informal sector. Women are more likely than men to work as unpaid family labourers or in the informal sector, to farm smaller plots and grow less profitable crops, operate in smaller firms and less profit table sectors, and generally earn less(World Bank, 2011[9]).
As a result of those facts, for instance, the incidence of poverty among young women in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia and Burundi is over 80% (World Bank, 2009). This obviously indicates that most girls of Sub-Saharan countries have not equipped themselves that enable them to generate decent jobs for their likelihood and achieve their maximum human potential in the world-of- work.
For the those reasons, more than any time before,particularly in Sub-Saharan countries, there is urgent need to create green economy that ensures inclusive growth for all. In doing so, generating green jobs for girls are assumed to be important components in the agenda of creating green economy.The good reason is that green jobs hold the promise of a triple dividend for the whole economy: sustainable enterprises, poverty reduction and a job-centred economic recovery(ILO, 2011[10]). For better understanding what the green jobs basically refer, it would be imperative to quote from the ILO (2012[11]) report, which was prepared for the World Day for Safety and Health at Work in April 28, 2012.
“Green jobs are decent works which contribute directly to reducing the environmental impact of enterprises, economic sectors or the economy as a whole by reducing energy and resource consumption, reducing emissions, waste and pollution and by preserving or restoring ecosystems…… Green jobs need to be decent work; i.e. good jobs which offer adequate wages, safe working conditions, job security, reasonable career prospects, and worker rights.”
In view of that, this community project intends to tackle development challengesfacing girls in Uganda by giving an adequate educationaltraining and informationon their sexual and reproductive rights.Here, by sexual and reproductive right is to mean empowering young woman’s ability to exercise her right to control what happens to her body; to make choices about whether, when and with whom to have intimate relationships, and if and when to have children; to protect herself from diseases associated with reproduction; and to have informed access to health services (CARE, 2008[12]).
To our limited knowledge this community project is the first of its kind to be implemented in Teso Sub RegionUganda with the aim of promoting green jobs for girls, with passable legal information on their sexual and reproductive rights. There is also a firm belief that this community project willserve as a role model for sustainable development at regional level and as a source of lessons for other projects in Uganda and elsewhere.
However, before proceeding into the nature of the project and the way how it has to be implemented and evaluated, it is imperative to have an overview of the Ugandan socio- economic and labour market challenges in the following ways.
- National Context Challenges
- Country Background
In view of the African Economic Outlook (AEO, 2014), with population size of36 Million and GDP per capita of $850, Ugandais aLower Middle Income country.The National Development Plan (2014-2015)has alsonoted that 80% of the population depends on agriculture and pastoral activities for their livelihood. With incidence of 46% at national level, 25.1% of its population lives in severe poverty. The data also illustrate thatUganda is experiencing rapid population growth at 2.5% and a high fertility rate that averages five children per woman.
There are as well large geographic and socioeconomic disparities across the country. This clearly indicates that Uganda’s main development challenge is to stimulate growth and to ensure dividends are equitably shared among its people in order to reduce poverty.Nevertheless,despite progress in some indicators, achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was not be reached by the 2015 target date. This is becausewith this rate of annual growth, the Uganda’s Human Development has not improved much over the past 10 years. A Report made by the UNDP(2014[13]) indicates that Uganda’s HDI value for 2012 is 0.456—in the low human development category—positioning the country at 164 out of 187 countries with comparable data. In the same fashion, the Gender Inequality Index of the UNDP, which reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment, and economic activity, is not also encouraging figure for the country. Uganda’s GII value in the 2013 index is 0.872, which gives it a rank of123 out of 148 countries.
Based on the current track, the country is likely to meet only one of the Millennium Development Goals, namely primary school enrolment.Indeed, even this is not without challenge. For instance, although over the last ten years net enrolment in primary school for girls has been satisfactory (about123%), many of them drop out before completing their basic education. This is evidenced by the fact thatthe net primary enrolment ratio for 6-11 year-olds has increased to 78.8%, compared to a target of 88%. The adult literacy rate is 34.9%. While the literacy rate for young men is about 41.7%, it is only 23.7% for women (AEO 2014). The gross enrolment ratio in lower upper secondary school for girls over the same period was lower (about 46.4%).Furthermore, the average estimated youth literacy rate over 2006- 2012 for people between 15 and 24is quite different in terms of gender. While the literacy rate for young men is about 85.4%, it is only 76.4% for young females (AEO, 2014[14]).
In a nutshell, despite some shortcomings, Uganda has made impressive strides in ensuring girls’ access to education by introducing Free Education Programme. On the negative, thousands of young girls have been unable to afford school fees or educational materials and many drops out before completing primary school. For instance, in 2010, 100 girls were forced into early marriage because of generational poverty and lack of awareness of their own rights. The gender dimensions of the health challenge are also striking, with maternal mortality at approximately 1,000 per 100,000 live births. The report of the AEO(2014) indicates that in 2013, people living with HIV / AIDS were about 550, 000 with adult prevalence of4.6% and female represents 45 % of the HIV/ADIS victims.
1.2.Labour Market Outcomes of Young Females
Recently the Uganda’s labour market isbrandedwith very high youth unemployment and low labour force participation rates of women. The AEO (2014[15]) signifiesfemale labour participation rate for the year 2012is limited to about 6.7%, unlike 63.8% for men. Additionally, currently with neither looking for work nor attending any school, 34.4 % of women are inactive in the Uganda labour market. This undoubtedlydemonstrates that there is massive occupational segregation in the labour market which needs a due consideration. The huge gender gap is exacerbated by many barriers for young women such as lack of technical and entrepreneurial skills, inexperience, deficient labour demand, credit constraints, unable to finish education due to unplanned pregnancy and other social exclusion. Many girls are leaving school without mastering basic skills such as literacy and numeracy which exposes them into prolonged unemployment spell in the labour market.
What makes things more challenging is that the formal sector of the Ugandanslabour absorbs only a fraction of job seekers even in times of high growth rates. World Bank (2012) states that formal employment of the country has represented less than 10 percent of the labour force since the 1990s. This noticeably demonstrates the fact that 90% of working people are in the informal economy. Subsequently, young women face twin constraints in accessing jobs in the labour market this time. First, firms are often reluctant to hire young people since they lack job experience and may lack soft skills such as reliability and knowledge of how to work and communicate effectively in a workplace (YEN, 2009[16]). In the sense that oncehiring, training, and firing workers will be costly, firms may be reluctant to take a chance on someone untested in the labour market. Second, young women face additional barriers because of gender. Employers often express clear preferences for male workers, based on the stereotype that women are less committed to their jobs and may leave if they get married or have children, that men are more flexible in work hours and ability to work over-time, and that women might experience more difficulties interacting with customers in some occupations due to culture(Marston, 2006[17]).
Integrating young Ugandans into the country’s economic life is thus still a challenging task. In an effort to address such issue, theUgandans government has recently shown its readiness to strive for better integration of young people. The government has grand ambitions for its future, as reflected in its “Vision 2035” strategy. Thisdocument serves as the anchor for the national Growth and Employment Strategy and envisions Uganda as an “emerging nation, democratic and united in its diversity” by 2035. Its principle objectives include: i) reducing poverty to less than 10%; ii) becoming a middle-income country; iii) being considered an industrialized nation; and iv) consolidating democracy and national unity(PRSP, 2010[18]). However, in order to meet all the stated objectives, all rounded cooperation with private and social partnership is a must for the Ugandans government in the sense thatthe government alone cannot actualize the intended goals without active participation oflegitimate organizations such as the Innovative Youth with Action Uganda - Uganda.
- Objectives of the project
The community project is antipoverty by its nature. It is designed to empower young women through multidimensional training and education opportunities in a way that help them moving out of the existing abject poverty.It is expected to enable young women to recognize the potential, possibilities and alternatives that exist in their lives, and give them the require skill to pursue their goals. The firm belief here is that multidirectional training enhances women’s personal growth and self-esteem while preparing them for production and business management. For instance, basic financialtraining prepares them to manage their own bank accounts and then finance their businessesby the book, which will encourage women to start their own business. Additionally, the training on health issues with particular emphasis on sexual and reproductive rightswill help them shape a sustainable change on their quality of lives. In a nutshell, the Organization of Innovative Youth with Action Ugandais genuinely committed to launch this community project with the following specific objectives.
i.Create awareness for 50 women about their basic rights and necessaries to live a normal life by launching the following training for the 50 selected women
- Adolescent growth and development training
- Basic sexuality and teenage pregnancy knowledge training as a tool for birth control
- Training on how to access health services as a tool for heath reproduction
- Training on contraception and family planning
- Training on self Esteem, Communication Skills, peer pressures and relationships for self-independent
- Training on drugs and substance abuse
- Training on sexual and gender based violence for the purpose of gender equality
- Training on gender and harmful traditional practices like CFM, FGM for the purpose of self-protection
- counselling skills
- Training on animal husbandry for poverty alleviation
ii.Prepare 50 girls to manage their own bank accounts and then finance their own businesses, and later maybe encourages young women to make their business decisions through the following training for the selected 50 girls
- Know how to maintain registered in business activities
- Know how to manage their bank accounts. Ex. How to record savings and loans.
- Know how to manage their bank accounts. Ex. How to record savings and loans.
- Know how to prepare proposal for bank credit
- Know how to create market links for their products
iii.Train 50young women in animal husbandry skills
- Delivering the Training
- Indicating the Project site
The project is basically located in selected districts of Teso Sub Region of Uganda. The region covers 6.7% of the country’s population with 46%incidence of poverty; and 23.2% of its population are vulnerable to poverty. Like other regions of the country, young women in Teso sub region are disadvantaged with illiteracy and little recognition for capabilities, leading to unequal access to material and human capital. Young women of the region facelong unemployment spell, early marriages, low education, high school dropout, social exclusion, decrepit houses and poor hygiene, and are in general unable to impact their circumstances.