SNV surpasses project targets to create employment for young people in Uganda

With seven months left until the end of the Youth Employability through Enterprise and Skills development (YES) project funded by the EU, SNV Uganda has surpassed the project target.

The YES project aims to create employment for 5,000 young people by end 2017 by developing their life skills, encouraging enterprise development and promoting of agriculture businesses. To date nearly 5700 jobs have been created.The majority of these were created in businesses that were started by participating young people, employing other young people who did not take part in the project.

Young people in the project have acquired additional productive assets such as land, livestock, motorcycles and bicycles, computers and electrical appliances. The average value of productive assets increased from 3.2 million UGX (€842 Euros) at the start of the project to 6.1 million UGX (€1,605) currently, exceeding the set project target of 5.3 million UGX (€1,394) by the end of 2017.

The project also aims to reduce the poverty rate among local young people. At the start of the project 71% of participating young people lived in poverty. This number has declined to 56%, repesenting a 21% decrease in the share of young people living on US$ 1.25 USD per day. The project project target is to further reduce the poverty rate, by 25% by the project's end in December 2017.

To strengthen the market relevance and delivery of transferable hands-on skills to young people in Uganda, the YES project partnered with private sector companies to provide internship and apprenticeship placements for the participating young people. So far, 1034 participants have gained skills through internships and apprenticeships. SNV and its partners also work with 14 Business, Technical, Vocational Education & Training (BTVET) institutions to integrate entrepreneurship and life skills training into their curriculums. The Ugandan government has now made it mandatory for the BTVETs to integrate entrepreneurship and life skills training into their curriculum. The YES project entrepreneurship and life skills manual is being used as a resource tool for trainings that Ugandan BTVET provide to young people.

The YES project has been profiled in Uganda's New Vision Newspaper.