National Strategy for Youth Employment in Agriculture, 2017

This Policy is prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries in a bid to make agriculture into a more attractive source of employment to the youth, and to lead to a massive reduction of poverty. The overarching goal of the Policy is to increase and sustain youth employment in the agricultural sector at the various levels of the value chain. Its vision and mission statement are an economically empowered youth from gainful employment in agriculture and enhancing youth employment by reducing deterrents to decent and gainful employment in agriculture, respectfully; both with an emphasis on youth employment in agriculture. The Policy identifies five thematic areas in order to achieve its goal; ensuring an enabling environment for youth employment in agriculture; supporting youth oriented agricultural extension; improving youth education and learning; supporting youth entrepreneurship; and adaption to and mitigation of agribusiness risk and uncertainties. The Policy is estimated to cost about UGX5.29 Billion within 2017-2022 and factors in an inflation rate of 7% in this estimation. The Policy is thus to be financed by GoU with support from development partners, and the Policy provides extensively for its budgetary plans. Monitoring of the Policy is to be done by district Agriculture Officers who will use reported data by agriculture extension workers, community development officers and commercial officers who have networks at the sub-county levels, while evaluation will be conducted mainly to assess the impact of the Policy in the medium and longer term.