More than 50 youth from the districts of Bunyangabu, Kasese,Kabarole and Fort portal have been trained on business enterprise selections in a training that took place at Atako Country Resort in Fort portal Tourism city. The one-day training organized by Kabarole Research and Resource Center aimed at building the capacity of the youth in Business and developing their skills. Mugisa Kamurungi Charles, the Micro Finance officer at KRC Uganda says that many youths in business have been facing challenges in terms of identifying markets, costing their products and record keeping. With this training, the micro finance officer says they will this time be able to select good businesses which they can easily carry on depending on how they want to run them.
Uganda currently has the second youngest population in the world with over 78% below 30 years. However, this percentage has been negatively affected by the rampant unemployment rates ranging between 64% and 70%, with up to 400,000 young people entering the job market annually for a mere 9,000 jobs. Based on the above statistics, entrepreneurship according to experts remains the most viable way to provide immediate employment and job creation opportunities. However, the majority of the start-ups don’t make it through their second year due to a number of reasons including the lack of entrepreneurial skills.
Kengozi Christine, the Kabarole district Senior Commercial officer says this is caused by youth who startup businesses that they do not understand very well. However, Kengozi Christine, the Kabarole district Senior Commercial officer expressed concern at the rate at which the youth are rushing into enterprises that fetch quicker returns ignoring those that would be working for them better. She highlights enterprises in agriculture to be bringing more returns than what the youth are rushing for like boda boda enterprises. Kengozi says the youth should take into consideration the type of business enterprise which they can easily carry on
According to her, the youth should always come up with the enterprises that are compatible with their resources. The youth who attended the training praised the organizers saying they have benefited a lot that they will be able to apply in their businesses.
