Occasional Paper

Youth Entrepreneurship in Uganda: Policy, Evidence and Stakeholders A Context Analysis

The youth unemployment and underemployment in Uganda, poses a formidable challenge for the Government . As a result, the government has embraced youth entrepreneurship as an avenue to expand employment opportunities. Within this report, light is shed on the developments of youth entrepreneurship policies in the country. In a bid to increase research uptake and the use of evaluation evidence in policy formulation and programming, this report analyses and provides a perspective on youth entrepreneurship along three interrelated dimensions: policy, evidence and stakeholders. The objective therefore, is to determine the extent to which youth entrepreneurship policies in Uganda are evidence based and the nature of the stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. With regard to methods, the study reviewed previous research and impact evaluations of different programme packages on business and labour market outcomes in Uganda and beyond. Impact evaluations of entrepreneurship as a means of enhancing labour market outcomes can influence multiple levels of the policy process and different stakeholders. This influence may range from improving the knowledge of certain stakeholders (and therefore expanding their capacities) to fundamentally redesigning policies. The analysis in this report highlights the inherent complexities of the policy-making process in Uganda—in particular, the challenge in finding meaningful ways to encourage the use of evidence in decision-making processes.