Working Paper Understanding the context of the Youth Forward initiative in Uganda A political economy analysis Alexandra Löwe, Łukasz Marć, Warren Nyamugasira, Phionah Sanyu, Fletcher Tembo, with Anne L. Buffardi and Peace Nganwa August 2016 Participatory Development Associates Ltd. About Youth Forward The Youth Forward initiative is a partnership led by The MasterCard Foundation, Overseas Development Institute, Global Communities, Solidaridad, NCBA-CLUSA and GOAL. Its focus is to link young people to quality employment or to start their own businesses in the agriculture and construction sectors in Ghana and Uganda. The Youth Forward Learning Partnership works across the initiative to develop an evidence-informed understanding of the needs of young people in Ghana and Uganda and how the programme can best meet those needs. The Learning Partnership is led by the Overseas Development Institute in the UK, in partnership with Development Research and Training in Uganda and Participatory Development Associates in Ghana. Overseas Development Institute 203 Blackfriars Road London SE1 8NJ Tel. +44 (0) 20 7922 0300 Fax. +44 (0) 20 7922 0399 E-mail: [email protected] www.odi.org www.odi.org/facebook www.odi.org/twitter © Overseas Development Institute 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). Readers are encouraged to reproduce material from ODI Working Papers for their own publications, as long as they are not being sold commercially. As copyright holder, ODI requests due acknowledgement and a copy of the publication. For online use, we ask readers to link to the original resource on the ODI website. The views and opinions presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position or policy of ODI, The MasterCard Foundation or its partners. Cover photo: Workers in Karamoja, Uganda. Kaarli Sundsmo/USAID CC. Contents Acronyms and abbreviations 5 Acknowledgements 6 Executive summary 7 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Background and purpose 9 1.2 Overview of the Youth Forward initiative 9 2 A framework for conducting political economy analysis 11 2.1 Steps involved in a political economy analysis 11 2.2 Data sources and analysis 13 3 Foundational factors 14 3.1 Historical, cultural and political foundations 14 3.2 Geography, natural resource and economic foundations 15 4 Current political, economic and regulatory environment 17 4.1 Current political environment 17 4.2 Current economic environment 18 4.3 Current regulatory and policy environment 20 4.4 Demographic trends 22 5 Key stakeholder groups 24 5.1 The executive 24 5.2 Technocrats, civil servants and ministries 24 5.3 Local government administration 24 5.4 Youth representative bodies 24 5.5 Non-governmental organisations and faith groups 24 3 5.6 Traditional leadership institutions 25 5.7 International financial institutions, multilateral agencies and bilateral donors 25 5.8 Private sector 25 6 Implications for the Youth Forward initiative 26 List of tables and figures Tables Table 1. Key dates in Uganda’s political history 18 Figures Figure 1. Youth Forward sites in Uganda 12 Figure 2. A conceptual map of the five steps in conducting a political economy analysis 14 Figure 3. GDP and GDP per capita growth (1990 is base year and equals 100) 21 Figure 4. Value added of agriculture, services and industry, 1960-2014 (% of GDP) 21 Figure 5. Contribution to GDP, 2009 and 2013 (%) 22 Figure 6. Structure of Uganda’s exports (top) and imports (bottom), 2014 23 4 ODI Working Paper Acronyms and abbreviations ARCC African Resilience to Climate Change NDP II Second National Development Plan BIT Bertelsmann Stiftung NGO non-governmental organisation CIA Central Intelligence Agency NRM National Resistance Movement DAC Development Assistance Committee ODA Official Development Assistance DFID UK Department for International Development OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DSIP Development Strategy Investment Plan Development DYNAMIC Driving Youth-led New Agribusiness and Microenterprise PEA political economy analysis EAC East African Community PRDP Peace Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda EU-EOM European Union Election Observation Mission UBoS Uganda Bureau of Statistics GDP gross domestic product UN United Nations GNI gross national income UNDESA UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs IDP internally displaced person UNDP UN Development Programme LC local council UPFYA Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Youth Affairs LRA Lord’s Resistance Army US United States MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology Y.E.T.A. Youth Employment Through Agriculture MP Member of Parliament YLP Youth Livelihood Programme NAPYE National Action Plan for Youth Employment 5 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Development Research for publication editorial and design support. All views and Training for their local knowledge and insights, and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the which contributed to the writing of this document. We authors, who took the final decisions on content, and do are grateful for the peer review comments received from not necessarily represent the position or policy of The Joy Moncrieffe and Bernard Sabiti. We thank DYNAMIC MasterCard Foundation or its partners. and Y.E.T.A. for the fruitful discussions held at the Youth Special thanks go to our colleague and friend, Warren Forward Kick-Off Meeting in Entebbe in December 2015, Nyamugasira, a thoughtful, passionate leader, who and The MasterCard Foundation for comments provided sadly passed away during the drafting of this paper. His on a draft version of the report. We also thank Sarah intellectual contributions to Youth Forward will be greatly Turner for project management, and Hannah Caddick missed by all those fortunate to have worked with him. 6 ODI Working Paper Executive summary Understanding the historical, social, political and peace was re-established in the region only in 2007. These economic context within which a development programme conflicts have left a legacy of poverty, poor infrastructure operates is vitally important. Context can influence the development, mental health problems and divided implementation and outcomes of an intervention, and communities in northern Uganda. identifying key contextual factors can help us interpret Uganda’s political system is best described as a ‘hybrid how and why different changes take place over time. regime’ in which the formal institutions of a democracy are A political economy analysis (PEA) is a tool used to super-imposed on traditional or authoritarian leadership understand context, through the systematic exploration systems. The National Resistance Movement, and in of the social, political, economic, cultural foundations and particular President Museveni, continues to dominate the rules within which individuals and institutions operate. A political landscape. Constitutionally guaranteed rights of PEA examines the distribution of power and wealth between association have recently come under threat from oppressive different groups and individuals, and the processes that legislation, the media is only partially free and governance create, sustain and transform these relationships over time. indicators are deteriorating. Civil society has had only Using an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) PEA limited success in mitigating these trends. However, political framework (Tembo, 2012), this paper explores, and leaders seem to be aware of the needs of young voters, and seeks to understand, the context that will be influential in there is some reason to believe that the government will determining the implementation efforts and outcomes of attempt to address their economic needs, even if they were the Youth Forward initiative in Uganda. disenfranchised in the course of the elections. Youth Forward focuses on economically disadvantaged young people, aged 15-24, living in Ghana and Uganda Economic progress and potential who are low income (living on less than $2 a day), out The country’s economic history has been largely shaped of school, unemployed or underemployed and moving by its landlocked location on the equator; the country through a transition point in their life (e.g. seeking their has remained largely agrarian, exporting unprocessed first job, marriage, becoming head of household). The primary products to the world market, while importing programme also recognises that young women face manufactured and processed goods. To this day, about particular social and economic challenges that require 70% of Uganda’s population work in the agriculture sector, tailored interventions. largely in subsistence farming. Its geographic disadvantage This paper first establishes the underlying cultural, in accessing work markets is aggravated by human-made political, economic and geographical factors, which barriers – borders and poor infrastructure – which have still bear influence on Uganda today. This allows for more recently been tackled, with some promise of success, the identification and exploration of contemporary by the East African Community. Its natural resources economic and political developments. It then identifies have made it an attractive tourist destination, and, as the key stakeholder groups with influence on the initiative’s country establishes its reputation as a safe destination, this progress, to locate entry points for Youth Forward to sector is expected to grow. influence and shape local dynamics. Despite this, Uganda has made remarkable progress