Presidential Industrial Hubs: the only way to solve unemployment and poverty

Op-Ed: The NRM government, under the leadership of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has always financed several programs in response to the high unemployment rate and poverty among the youth in the country.

The Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) is one of the programs that was launched by the government through the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development in 2014, and the Parliament of Uganda approved UGX 265bn for the YLP implementation in the first year of 2013/14 to 2017/18.

It should be noted that the government of Uganda, under presidential initiatives, has also implemented several initiatives to alleviate poverty in the country, including a Presidential Initiative on Wealth and Job Creation, Science and Technology, Poverty Alleviation, Banana Industrial Development Initiative, and Parish Development Model, among others.

Largely, these initiatives aim to address the root causes of poverty in Uganda by providing support to vulnerable groups, promoting economic growth, and improving access to education and employment opportunities.

However, many of them, including Emyooga, Poverty Alleviation, Entandikwa, and the YLP, among others, encountered a number of challenges ranging from conflicts within group members to issues to do with accountabilities and different business interests among group members, which affected their successes.

On the other hand, not all is lost as the Presidential Initiative on Skilling the Youth Project is bearing fruit as more and more youth across the country continue to acquire skills in the fields of hairdressing, embroidery, tailoring, knitting, weaving, shoemaking, bakery, and confectionery, among others. With these skills, many youth have become self-employed and can afford basic needs for themselves.

Launched in Kampala in April 2017, the Presidential Initiative for Skilling the Youth is now spread out in 19 Zonal Presidential Industrial Hubs across the country.

The extension of the hubs to different industrial zones resulted from President Museveni’s plea with the government to set aside shillings 130 billion in 2020 for the building of 21 zonal industrial centers around the country, which he said would improve youth skill development and training and lessen the young labor shortage.

Since 2017, when the initiative was started, many youth have acquired life skills that have changed their lives. On April 16, 2024, over 400 youth from the Teso Zonal Industrial Hub in Soroti graduated with certificates on various courses that they had been doing for about six months.

These developments have been happening and will continue to happen in all 19 Zonal Industrial Hubs spread across the country.

It is also important to note that besides the six-month training being given to the students in all the 19 industrial hubs, craft workers like carpenters, cobras, electricians, and welders, among others who trained on the job, are enrolled in the industrial hubs and skilled for a period of one week and thereafter awarded the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT) Certificate, which is an equivalent of the Senior Four.

Youth who have had the opportunity to acquire skills from industrial hubs have never remained the same. There are also some graduates who failed to get white collar jobs after their studies in university, and they decided to join the industrial hubs so as to acquire some skills. Upon completion, their lives have never remained the same.

This is a clear testimony that the initiative is the right diagnosis that President Museveni has given to address the challenges of unemployment and poverty among the youth in Uganda.

The author is Julius Obongo, a former journalist with Etop Newspaper!

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