Fix the gaps in Youth Livelihood Programme
What you need to know:
- The issue: Youth programme
- Our view: The guidelines that only groups of 10 or more can access funding under YLP, yet it is very rare that projects ever get the maximum funding of Shs25m. This makes it quite difficult for the groups to make a meaningful profit.
Figures coming out of Amuru District in northern Uganda indicate that cash to the tune of Shs704.7 million meant to have been allocated to youth in the district under the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) is lying idle on the district’s accounts. This is because many of the youth in the district will not apply for the loans. Many would be beneficiaries will not apply for loans for fear that they will be arrested if they fail to pay back in time.
The case of Amuru made it to the pages of a national newspaper, but it is a pointer to some of the challenges that YLP, which was introduced with the aim of empowering the youth to go into business and production, facilitate skills development and provide them with livelihood support with an overall view of addressing unemployment among the youth and providing them with sources of income.
Under the programme, interest-free loans are provided to youth groups of between 10 and 15 people, with 30 per cent of them female. Funding can go up to Shs25m depending on the nature of the project that a group comes up with.
During March last year’s YLP review meeting it emerged that the implementation of YLP cannot be said to be helping in enabling the youth to get a reasonable income or in the fight against unemployment. Most of the issues that were raised during that meeting have never been addressed.
It was, for example, found that some of the youth, who think bigger than their colleagues and would want to get to implement much bigger projects that may be more capital intensive, are locked out as they do not help in the fight against unemployment or in enabling the youth get reasonable incomes.
The guidelines that only groups of 10 or more can access funding under YLP, yet it is very rare that projects ever get the maximum funding of Shs25m. This makes it quite difficult for the groups to make a meaningful profit. There is need to reduce the groups’ membership. At the same time the youth who think bigger and have capital-intensive projects are never considered for facilitation.
Budgetary allocations to the programme have always been on the increase since January 2014 when the programme was launched, but actual disbursements hardly ever amount to 60 per cent. The funding deficit stood at Shs150b or 56.6 per cent by the beginning of last financial year.
YLP is no doubt a great programme, but it will not help us fight unemployment and provide the youth with livelihoods if the implementers do not fix the gaps in there.
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