Africa-Press – Uganda. A 12-month survey carried out in Busoga sub region has revealed that young people are less engaged in governance and advocacy issues.
The survey was carried out in the districts of Kaliro, Buyende, Bugweri and Bugiri, by Restless Development-Uganda, globally known for supporting young people to lead change on local and global issues.
Specifically, the survey was on access to services, awareness of the budget and development process, budget monitoring, budget advocacy and government response to budget monitoring and other accountability initiatives at local, national and regional levels.
The sample size consisted of 384 young people between 18 to 30 years, including 12 key informants and 8 Focus Group Discussions.
From the findings, it emerged that 49 percent of the respondents reported to have not accessed government projects, including Naads, operation wealth creation, Uganda women entrepreneurship programme and youth livelihood programme.
Although 78 percent of the respondents reported being familiar with the district lower local council leadership, only 5 percent of them knew the process through which budgets are developed.
As a result, leaders in the Sub-region have pledged to involve the youths more in governance issues.
Mr Elijah Dhikusooka Kagoda, the Kaliro district chairperson, said he is going to lobby for more involvement of the youths in governance.
“I have demanded a district plan and will invite the youth to study it. Some of them have no reading culture, but we shall force them [to read],” Mr Kagoda said.
He, however, decried what he termed as the less aggressive nature of the current crop of youths, saying during his time as a secretary for youths, he made sure there was a slot to discuss their [youths] issues.
Ms Janet Billy Mulindwa, the Kaliro resident district commissioner, said there is a deliberate move by technocrats in the district to lock her out of monitoring the government projects.
“You can’t monitor something whose meetings you don’t sit in. I think it is a deliberate move, not an oversight [to lock her out], but I am committed to forcefully attend such meetings,” Ms Mulindwa said.
Mr Isaac Arinaitwe, the Programme Manager Restless Development-Uganda, said they conducted a baseline study to assess the effectiveness and the involvement of young people in the processes and found that in all these four project districts there was less involvement of young people in the planning and budgeting processes.
“This project is playing a critical role in ensuring that young people actively get involved in these processes to appreciate the work that the government is doing, and we believe at the end of the day, there is going to be improved transparency and appreciation by the communities,” Mr Arinaitwe said.
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