GOVT COMMITTED TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT , SAYS, MIN AMONGI

Uganda* has demonstrated commitment to sustainable development through strong support and approval of vision 2040, East African community’s vision 2050 and Africa agenda 2063, the minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi has said.

Opening a dialogue on social protection under the theme: social protection as an enabler for human capital development across the lifecycle at Serena Hotel in Kampala on Tuesday, Amongi said all of which strongly feature in Uganda’s second and current national development plan III; whose overall goals is to transition Uganda into a middle income country through strengthening Uganda’s competitiveness for sustainable wealth creation, employment and inclusive growth.

She added that through prudent macroeconomic and social policies, Uganda successfully reduced the number of it’s citizens living below poverty line from 56% in 1992 to 20% in 2022 but through recent data Projects there is an increase in poverty to about 30%.

“Social protection is a critical component of Uganda’s national development strategy for inclusive socio economic transformation as a strategic tool for reducing poverty, vulnerability, enhancing household resilience to shocks and supporting human capital development for sustainable and inclusive growth,” she said.
“Our social policies are authored on increasing access to social security through direct and contributory scheme, enhancing care, protection, equal opportunities, affirmative action and support to vulnerable people,”she noted.
She continued: “strengthening institutional frameworks for social protection delivery, targeting investments in human capital development, addressing vulnerability that affects boys and girls, men and women and human rights based approach among others are the areas government is directing more focus on.”
“Further, our lion share of the national budget is usually allocated to social programs, free Universal primary and secondary education, basic health improvement programmes, water and sanitation, rural roads and rural agricultural modernization,”she added.

She also highlighted others as Social Assistance Grants for Older persons, Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme, Youth Livelihood Programme, Generating Growth, opportunities and productivity for women entrepreneurs (Grants from World Bank sh800b), Parish Development Model, Emyooga among others.
She said the programmes often enjoy stronger political support and supports government development agenda since most treasury bonds are purchased by the National Social Security Fund, the most efficient in Africa.