Uganda plans to harness a demographic dividend as a pathway to realization achieving middle income status as enshrined in Uganda’s Vision 2040. Characterized by economic growth, a demographic dividend (DD) is achieved when a country’s population structure has - with the right social and economic policies are in place - more working-age adults and fewer dependents to support.
Uganda Vision 2040 identifies the country’s abundant human resource as one of the key fundamentals that need to be strengthened to accelerate the country’s transformation through harnessing of the potential demographic dividend. And with one of the most youthful populations in the world (78 percent of Uganda’s population is under 30 years), to achieve the demographic dividend, there is need for targeted investments in this young population in terms of their health, education and skills.
To Institutionalize and streamline the implementation of the DD in Uganda, UNFPA has supported the government of Uganda to develop a number of key guidance documents to accelerate harnessing the support in implementation processes. These policy documents include the Demographic Dividend Compliance tool which is government’s way of ensuring that the selected DD interventions are fully integrated into all government instruments and are actually implemented and strengthening implementation of national development plans towards realization of Vision 2040; The Certificate of Compliance (CoC) for the Annual Budget FY 2019/200 to Demographic Dividend which aims at ensuring that the National Budget and local government budgets are focused on implementation of the National Development Plans (NDPs); and Stakeholders’ Common Position on Harnessing the Demographic Dividend that focuses on the five pillars for harnessing the DD to include the Need for a demographic transition, the need for enhanced investment in education, the need for enhanced investment for a healthy and productive human capital, the need for economic growth and employment creation; and the need for good governance and accountability.
For details, find the Demographic Dividend Compliance Tool, Compliance Certificate and Local Government Position Paper on the DD here:
- Compiled by Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
