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Almost 88 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth live in developing countries. Globally, young people account for approximately 24 percent of the working poor. Although the world’s youth population is expected to grow, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for young women and men remain limited – particularly for those living in economically stagnant rural areas of developing countries. Hence, creating more productive and beneficial jobs for the rural youth is particularly urgent.

The FAO Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala, aims to address this challenge by creating more and better employment opportunities for youth in rural areas and agri-food systems. To do so, ICA combines different interventions, such as capacity development, institutional support, knowledge generation and partnership creation.

This context analysis provides an overview of Uganda, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Fianlly, it also analyses the 14 to 17 age cohort involvement in the agricultural sector and country’s migration and refugee governance.