Arua City, Partners Intensify Efforts to Tackle Youth Unemployment
Joint Press Conference on Wednesday afternoon in the Arua City Council attended by City Leaders and Partners
Arua City Council and its development partners have stepped up efforts to address persistent youth unemployment by promoting skills development, entrepreneurship and climate-smart economic activities.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics National Population and Housing Census data of 2024 for Arua City, the general unemployment rate stands at 19 percent among the working-age population, highlighting the growing need for sustainable employment opportunities.
City leaders say unemployment has become one of the key drivers of crime, with many idle young people spending time along streets before resorting to robbery, theft and other criminal activities.
To reverse the trend, the city and its partners plan to equip young people with practical skills and support them to venture into income-generating enterprises such as poultry keeping, piggery, concrete bricklaying and other productive businesses.
Speaking during a press conference on Wednesday ahead of the International Youth Day celebrations scheduled for August 12, Mashur Amule, the Executive Director of RIAD Foundation, the lead partner for the 2026 commemoration, said they have identified viable enterprises that can help young people create jobs and improve their livelihoods.
“Among the activities that we are doing under youth skilling is one poultry. There are those youths that have chosen poultry to be their enterprises, and we have placed them where they are supposed to be landed. Two, there are those who have chosen hair dressing. We also have programs related to agriculture, urban farming, where we are supposed to support 1000 farmers within the city to access knowledge when it becomes urban farming. Three, we are also to empower women with entrepreneurship skills, and where we have so far given them grants for them to be doing their businesses within the city.”
Judith Drate, the Community Development Officer for Arua City, said this year’s activities will also encourage young people to embrace innovation and technology as tools for creating employment while promoting sustainable use of natural resources and tackling climate change.
“We are living in a global economy, a global world where things are evolving, events are changing. So, how are we going to inspire the youth? How are youth going to be inspired to follow suit? How are youth going to be inspired to come up with technologies that can help them to improve their livelihood, but again also sustain what is already available, especially in relation to climate change and environments that they live in.”
Meanwhile, Hon. Lawrence Alionzi, the mayor of Arua City, said many young people possess innovative ideas but lack the technical guidance and support needed to turn them into successful businesses.
He welcomed the collaboration between the city and its development partners, saying the joint effort will help bridge the gap between youth potential and available opportunities.
“The other strategy is that when we move towards East African integration, a young man will move from Tanzania to come to Arua to work. A woman will move from Kenya could come here and sell her Irish and tomatoes. That’s the next level, and he must arrive, or she must arrive, to a self-sustaining system which can capture her in terms of data and give her a system to thrive on while she fends for herself. So it is futuristic also. We need interventions for the youth”
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics Labour Market Survey 2025, released in April 2026, indicates that while the general unemployment rate in West Nile stands at 8.9 percent, unemployment among young people aged 15 to 24 is 14.9 percent, one of the highest rates in the country.