Sustainable Inclusive Employment for Young Women Graduates in Western Uganda

Abstract

Girl child education in Uganda has gradually improved over the years, with an increased number of women going and graduating from higher levels of education. However, females often outnumber males in arts, education, and business courses. Men have continuously outnumbered women in science study courses, practical technical fields, and advanced degrees like postgraduate, master’s degrees, and PhDs (Stewart-Williams & Halsey, 2021). This limits their ability to easily access fulfilling employment, either in formal employment or by establishing their own businesses. Young women who graduate also continue to face socio-cultural gender norms and biases that restrict their participation in male-dominated sectors.

Young women continue to experience sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse while trying to secure employment. These barriers have reinforced economic exclusion, reduced young women’s confidence and bargaining power, and constrained their ability to secure employment or successfully start and grow enterprises. Thus, gender disparities remain a persisting issue in the labor markets in Uganda, just like most of the Sub-Saharan countries, in the way they are constructed. The country continues to face high poverty and unemployment rates, particularly in post-conflict regions recovering from prolonged insurgencies. These challenges disproportionately affect young women, with more than 55% living in multidimensional poverty.

This project is meant to create inclusive, gender-transformative employment to Ugandan youth graduates, especially in the Mbarara district, who graduate but are unable to sustainably earn income to meet their basic needs. Strengthen the capacities of these young women graduates in Mbarara District to overcome the challenges of gender inequalities, limited access to decent employment, workplace harassment, weak enterprise capacity, and restricted access to finance and markets. The Project responds to these structural barriers through a gender-transformative business incubation models of pre-incubation, incubation and post-incubation. The project directly contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) as well as Uganda’s National Development Plan IV, Local Economic Empowerment Priorities in Mbarara District. It aims to transition 210 young women graduates into dignified and fulfilling employment within a period of 2 years.