Match public investment with jobs, EU tells govt
EU says there is need to account for every shilling that is invested in terms of jobs created. Photo / File
What you need to know:
- EU says the employment potential of public investment in roads, schools, hospitals, water and sanitation and electricity, among others, must be realised to create jobs for youth
The European Union has challenged government to ensure every shilling spent on public investments has a return in terms of creating jobs for Ugandans.
In a speech read for him at the launch and dissemination of the public investment financing strategy in Kampala on Tuesday, Amb Jan Sadek, the head of the European Union delegation to Uganda, said government should take a step further with some additional analytics, insights and policy reflection, to establish a link between every billion shilling of public investment and created jobs to distinguish investments with high and low labour content.
The employment potential of public investment in roads, schools, hospitals, water and sanitation and electricity, among others, he said, must be realised to create jobs for youth.
“Creating jobs - especially for youth - will be one of Uganda’s major policy challenges, the direct and indirect employment impact of alternative public investments and various financing and implementation modalities will be an essential element of the equation,” Amb Sadek said, noting that the public investment and financing strategy will help development partners to align support to priority sectors.
“As an example, the EU just approved a €15m programme to support Uganda in unlocking the huge potential of climate financing, both at national level, by supporting the dedicated unit in the Ministry of Finance, but also at local district level,” he said.
Likewise, he noted, the EU had developed a broad portfolio of €60m, which will facilitate access to affordable finance for SME’s in different stages of development raging from smallholder farmers to women entrepreneurs, who will be provided with long term capital of upto $500.000.
In a statement read by Rachel K. Subdde, the senior country economist, Ms Mukami Kariuki, the World Bank country manager, said the overarching goal of the public investment financing strategy is to address binding constraints on economic growth, and in particular the significant infrastructure deficit that the country faces.
Quality issues
Ms Mukami said: “It remains difficult to see how higher investments can yield returns if the quality of projects is poor,” noting that quality issues arise from poor design, delays in implementation, cost escalations and time-overruns.
