By Mulengera Reporters
Last Thursday NPA, the government think-tank charged with championing long term development planning, met UN agency reps and other development partners to explain what the Museveni government intends to do in the next 5 years (2021-2016) to make Ugandans healthier, wiser, more educated/skilled and therefore more employable.
Speaking on behalf of NPA ED Dr. Joseph Muvawala, who didn’t attend, NPA education specialist Dr Hamis Mugendawala run through the interventions NPA experts have convinced government to undertake. He highlighted what he called strategic interventions government, which made NPA Chairperson to an ex-officio member of Cabinet, will be making to improve on the health of Ugandans, skilledness and employability.
All these are to be made under NDP III which the NPA team was meeting the development partners and managers of training institutions about. They are all aimed at achieving social-economic transformation of Ugandans. That government realizes the high concentration of energetic young people to be one of the harnessable opportunities under Uganda Vision 2040.
And the idea now under NDP III is how to roll out human capital development interventions to make this young labor force skilled, productive and more employable. There is recognition the problem isn’t just one of unemployment but many educated young people/University graduates have paper education but with no employable skills.
This partly explains why even the investors we attract have continued finding excuse to continue employing people from their own countries. This simply means the work ethic and desired levels of labor productivity is lacking in the Ugandan labor market. The Madhvani Group was given by one of the subsequent speakers as an example of big investment entities with well-paying jobs but has continued employing foreigners because there are no Ugandans with the relevant skills.
The example being that of sugar engineers. The meeting was told Uganda doesn’t have a single sugar engineer leaving Indians to have a field day on all the jobs available in our otherwise very vibrant sugar industry. The truth is each of these sugar manufacturing establishments require sugar engineers. So, the dilemma now for the country is how to ensure we don’t just invest in skilling but skill our young for the jobs and opportunities which are actually available. This requires evidence-based training and human capital development-related decisions as was emphasized by Dr. Ekwaro Obuku who is the very outspoken President of Uganda Medical Association uniting all medical workers in Uganda.
Dr. Mugendawala explained that for sustainable industrialization for house hold incomes to be achieved (as prioritized in NDP III), our young people must be exposed to an education system that produces them into appropriately skilled labor force with the right mindset and attitude towards work.
“This labor requires social protection for them to concentrate on work and work very productively,” he said. He added that all the previous labor and manpower surveys are unanimous on one finding; amidst the unemployment scourge, Uganda lacks knowledgeable and appropriately-skilled labor to actively participate in the economy.
This leads to low levels of labor productivity which must be addressed by having a comprehensive human capital development intervention in place otherwise low labor productivity will constrain industrial growth. Quoting productivity survey reports, Mugendawala said on average Ugandan labor is productive only up to 38% of their would- be full potential. It’s regrettable under NDP II labor productivity targets aren’t going to be achieved, he noted adding similar embarrassment shouldn’t happen under NDP III.
WHAT GOVT MUST DO;
The following is what NPA says government must do differently to achieve different results: invest and actively get involved in Early Childhood Development (ECD) which had 100% been left to the private sector. The proportion of the population in poor health should be tremendously diminished.
There must be increased access to social protection programs beyond just the SAGE intervention that avails elderly citizens some monthly income to give them basic purchasing power. Population growth rates and early marriages and very risky teenage/underage pregnancies must be checked and halted. Untamed population growth keeps eroding efforts being made to get our economic growth rate to the NDP II-desired 6.8% and even better. As the UNFPA representative Alain Sibenaler told the meeting, unless it takes decisive steps to tame population growth, the Museveni government can only keep dreaming about economic growth.
The Museveni regime must also plan to undertake high level strategic interventions covering all citizens from zero age to retirement. Must invest in maternal health, nutritional programs and in preventive strategies to tame the rampant None Communicable Diseases which have lately been on the increase. There must be a health insurance scheme that majority of the citizens can afford.
MORE DETAILED VERSION
To produce more productive citizens out of our education system into which trillions are annually sunk, government intends to invest in adequate provision of basic education requirements and in standards enforcement for all schools and academic institutions. Careers guidance and talent identification programs must be intensified.
The TVET institutions must be built, operated and students certified to international standards to increase global competitiveness of our labor force so that they aren’t rejected by oil companies that are free to employ the best on the market without being that much obliged to prioritize citizens because at the end of the day it’s business and the it’s the best that must be hired.
As regards social protection (basically addressing what happens once is out of active work e.g. the crippled, the elderly, the disabled), government intends to enforce all social protection-related laws besides carrying out vulnerability assessment and mapping across the country. Mugendawala, whose presentation was followed by a panel discussion whose proceedings will be summarized later, said all these interventions are aimed at nothing but realization of “a healthy and appropriately skilled labor force.”
ABOUT THE NPA SERIES
But what are the NPA policy consultation dialogue series about? It involves NPA, closely working with UNDP, variously meeting high level experts in the different fields and getting views from them to enrich what will in the end be produced as NDP III. The areas being consulted about are broadly being referred to as the high impact strategic reforms/interventions areas.
And according to NPA ED Dr. Joseph Muvawala, they include human capital development (encompassing education, health, nutrition, HIV/Aids, skills development etc); value addition & inclusiveness (through interventions related to agriculture, industrialization, trade, mineral development & tourism); good governance (rule of law, public sector reform, public service delivery etc); mainstreaming crosscutting issues (the leaving no one behind principle-gender, youth, HIV/Aids, nutrition, refugees, climate change, environment etc) and finally financing and development cooperation. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
