Uganda, will tomorrow Thursday the 12th of August 2021 join the rest of the United Nations Fraternity to commemorate International Youth Day. International Youth Day is celebrated in conformity with the UN General Assembly Resolution 54/120 of 1999 that officially designated 12th August every year as International Youth Day.
The day will be commemorated under the theme; "Youth Innovations for Transformation of Food Systems and Sustainable Human Health".
According to Hon. Nyirabashitsi Sarah Mateke the State Minister for Youth and Children Affairs, the theme enjoins the world to examine the extent to which young people are applying their education to inform innovations that are critical in freeing.
She told the press in Kampala this morning, that the International Youth Day provides all persons with an excellent opportunity to audit and take stock of the various interventions designed to empower and economically emancipate the young people worldwide.
“It is also a day on which we evaluate ourselves on the implementation of the world programme of Action on Youth. Government, Private Sector, Civil Society, and Religious Institutions plus the Youth themselves take an audit of activities/ programmes aimed at youth empowerment as they at the same time reposition themselves to do even better in the following year” the Minister said.
She added that under the Youth Livelihood Programme, 247,700 youth under 20,361 youth projects have benefited from the over shs. 165 billion Youth Livelihood Programme fund cumulatively of which 46% of all the projects are agricultural projects. Under the Women Entrepreneurship Programme, 180,914 women in 15,294 groups have received funding for projects to the tune of shs. 96.1 bn. Nearly 40% of this money has gone to young women.
Hon. Mateke further revealed that the Agro-Industrialization will therefore contribute to the rapid commercialization of the agricultural sector and that young men and women must take advantage of all the new opportunities under Agro-industrialization.
She explains that the Agro-industrialization strategy will address low production and productivity of primary agriculture, poor post-harvest handling and storage, limited value addition and insufficient market access. It will also permit adherence to food safety requirements and standards in export markets. This will also partially address the reason provided to create Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in regional markets, which constrains agribusiness.
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, this year's celebrations will take a scientific approach. The main venue for the celebrations will be Kololo Ceremonial Ground and the function will be presided over by H.E the President of the Republic of Uganda.
During the youth week however, 5th-11th August, the minister says young people have been involved in various webinar discussions on the theme. They have also involved themselves in some community projects under the National Youth Council and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).