Uganda has world’s youngest population

Uganda, with the world’s highest youth unemployment, also has the youngest population in the world, according to a new World Bank report.

Unemployed young people among the ages 15 to 24 has been recorded at 83 per cent in Uganda, says the newly launched, Africa Development Indicators (ADI) 2008/09, focusing on the youth and employment in Africa says.

According to the report, Uganda’s population also has the highest dependency ratio in Africa — registered at 1:1. (Dependency ratio is the ratio of people younger than 15 or older than 64 to the working age population).

The report says youth unemployment is 68 per cent in Zimbabwe and 56 per cent in Burkina Faso, the other two countries that face challenges similar to Uganda.

The report, launched at the International Monetary Fund offices in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a ceremony that was broadcast live through video conferences in selected African countries, reinforces the point that comprehensive and integrated approaches tend to do better than fragmented ones.

The World Bank warns that unless Uganda, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso scale up their efforts to create jobs, the youth will find their way into crime and armed conflict.

“Given the challenges faced by the youth in labour markets, success in pursuing employment for young people will require long-term concerted actions spanning a wide range of policies and programmes,” said the report.

“Due to the increase in youth population as well as the very high fertility rate that characterises the region, African countries will likely face an increase in job creation pressure for the youth over the coming decades,” it adds.

The indicators in the report show that parenthood in Africa begins at an early age.

In Uganda, 47 per cent of females in the age range of 15-24 years had already given birth at least once by 2006 and 15 per cent of the males at this age bracket were already fathers.

At a Social Security Forum hosted in Kigali two weeks ago, delegates were told that Africa still has the youngest population, on average, in the whole world.

This, according to a report from the International Social Security Association, is “typified by Uganda, which with a median age of 15 years, has the youngest population in the world.”
Obiageli K. Ezekwesili, vice president of the World Bank, Africa region, said Africa’s youth-to-adult unemployment rate equals three, which underlines the difficulties of youth participation in the labour market.

“Youth employment elasticity to gross domestic product growth is low and only a fifth of that observed for all workers,” Mr Ezekwesili said. “More than one-third of the youth in the world are either seeking but unable to find work, have given up on the job search entirely or are working but still living below the $2 a day poverty line.”

“Youth make up 40 per cent of Africa’s working age population but 60 per cent of the total unemployed. In all, 72 per cent of African youth live on less than $2 a day,” Mrs Ezekwesili said. While the youth population in Africa is not homogenous, the typical African youth as given by medians is an 18-year-old female who lives in a rural area, is literate but no longer attending school and likely to be married with children,” she added.

In the report, the World Bank listed Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda among countries with a high incidence of poverty among young people. In Kenya, over 54 per cent of young people live on less than $2 a day. In Uganda, over 93 per cent of the youth live on that pitiful sum.