UBOS Executive Director, Dr. Chris Mukiza
Led by UBOS Chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha and Executive Director Dr. Chris Mukiza, the authors of the 2024 final census report have highlighted the reasons why the government of President Museveni can’t afford to ignore prioritizing and investing in interventions that directly empower Uganda’s youths, religious leaders, and religious institutions.
It’s made very clear in the 351-page report that of the roughly 46 million people Uganda has, only 0.2% (roughly 85,559) are irreligious and confessed to having nothing to do with religion at all. The rest—99.8%—made it clear that they are religious, with a whopping 82% of them confessing to be Christians and 13% being Muslims.
The report indicates that such “levels of religiosity” illustrate the enormous influence religious leaders and clergy wield in contemporary Uganda. Accordingly, the GoU is urged to tap into this influence and deliberately involve the clergy, religious leaders, and institutions in the implementation, popularization, and rolling out of key mindset change and social economic transformation programs and interventions.
That the clergy have to deliberately be involved in civic education and community mobilization in order to increase the success of interventions like the Parish Development Model and public health undertakings, among others.
Simultaneously, the same report shows why the GoU has no option but to prioritize the empowerment and capacitation of its youths and the country’s young people more than ever before. That of the 45.9 million people in the country, roughly 50% are children aged 0-17 years; 24% are youths aged 18-30 years, and a mere 5% comprise seniors or older persons aged 60 years and above. The remaining 21% comprises adults aged 30-60 years.
The report authors base all this statistics to propose steps that have to deliberately be undertaken by the GoU to effectively harness the attendant ‘demographic dividend.’ That, to ensure that such a young population is turned into an opportunity, as opposed to being a burden, the GoU should deliberately invest in their quality education, skilling, and health access to meaningfully secure their future.
That it’s only through investing in their collective appropriate health, education, and skilling that the GoU will ever be able to sustainably increase the employability of its youths. That the same will enhance the productivity of labor in Uganda. And it’s only through increased skilling that the GoU’s job creation and monetization of the economy program interventions will sustainably yield the desired outcomes.
The report also calls on the GoU to become more deliberate and invest more in long-term planning aimed at achieving sustainable management and use of the country’s land resources, which are inelastic, yet the population density (number of persons living per square kilometer) increased from 2014’s 173 persons to 190 only 10 years later.
