Youth leaders are calling on the government to give priority to the long-awaited Youth Startup Bill, aimed at tackling the systemic obstacles faced by young entrepreneurs in Uganda.
This appeal was made during a national forum hosted by the Ngabo Youth Friendly Services Initiative, where Executive Director Sadat Zagah Zziwa highlighted the challenges that youth encounter, despite the presence of government initiatives.
Zziwa noted that although programs such as the Parish Development Model (PDM) and the Presidential Initiative on Skilling the Girl Child offer financial support and training, many young entrepreneurs continue to grapple with excessive taxation, insufficient capital, and bureaucratic hurdles.
“Young people receive startup funds, but by the time they navigate taxes and permits, the money is gone. We need to address these silent, unspoken challenges,” Zziwa stated.
The Youth Startup Bill, originally introduced as a private member’s bill by Hon. Boniface Okot, aims to provide solutions including tax incentives, accessible financing, and assistance for innovative businesses. Although there was initial enthusiasm from the Minister of Trade and the President last year, progress on the bill has since halted. Proponents contend that its enactment is essential for fostering youth entrepreneurship.
“Young innovators with ideas that could employ thousands are sidelined due to a lack of financial services and access to land,” Zziwa added.
The event, supported by Plan International and the Safe and Inclusive Cities Project, brought together youth leaders, Members of the Parliamentary Forum on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons, and other stakeholders.
Participants emphasised the need for Parliament to expedite the bill’s reading and implementation.
“Youth voices are crucial. We need policies that create real, sustainable change for the next generation,” Zziwa added.
“I want to tell the youth that you are the biggest number of the population of Uganda. Actually, if the youth wanted to take over this country, it will be the easiest thing ever to be done. But the challenge with the youth is they say one thing and do another. They have noted got into solidarity and demanding what is due to them,” Rose Obiga, Terego Woman MP noted.
She highlighted that while there is a designated portion of the parish development model aimed at supporting the youth, the conditions set for accessing this funding appear to be unfavorable.
She also urged the youth to engage more directly with the opportunities available.
Nabuko Claire Dorothy, a youth advocate and member of the Youth Advisory Board for the Safe and Inclusive Project, noted that young people often struggle with obtaining licenses and navigating tax requirements.
Additionally, she stressed that when they do access government programs like PDM, they face challenges in sustaining their newly established businesses, which contributes to the high failure rate of these ventures within their first year.
“Many youth entrepreneurs end up spending most of the little capital capital, paying for licenses, paying for the taxes that are so many, and yet their businesses are so small. So let’s say, in case they get money from PDM program, they start up a business. They end up spending 250,000 paying for a license for a year.So this 1 million might not even support their business,” she added.
She also emphasized the need to train youth in areas such as financial literacy, how to manage a business, and maybe also mindset change, because for someone to sustain something, they need some transformation that will help them move.
Ismail Saxafi, the team leader of the Aider Refugee Initiative stressed that: “All the programs that we have been discussing today here, most of them are limited to Ugandans.
“They are not included for refugees. So we are calling the government of Uganda to include for refugees, because refugees do not have any other government,” he noted.
“For example, PDM is a great initiative that the government of Uganda started, but it is excluded from refugees. We cannot benefit as a refugees, and we want, really to do businesses. Our people have skills, and they want to do business so that they can take care of themselves and even contribute to the development of the country. We request the government of Uganda, when they are planning such great initiatives, to think about refugees so that they become self reliant,” he added.
