Human capital development is hinged on four aspects including education, health, water and environment, and social development. The four sectors epitomize the country’s focal areas of strategic investment through ensuring a healthy, educated and properly skilled population to drive the planned growth and transformation. In cognizance of the fundamental role human capital plays in the development process, the NDP III stipulates it as one of the priority areas that can be leveraged to attain socio-economic transformation.
Over the NDP I and II period, education, water and health outcomes have significantly improved. With a more educated labor force, Uganda’s greatest challenge is no longer access to social services but rather access to economic opportunities such as jobs. Today, Uganda’s human capital is characterized by low labor productivity especially the agricultural sector which employs 72% of the entire labor force.
During the NDP III period, Government will continue investing in human capital development with a major emphasis on increasing productivity of the population for increased competitiveness. To address the skills gap and improve the health of the labor force; short, medium and long term interventions will be implemented. In the short term, focus will be on massive skills training programs targeting the rapid build-up of skills among the youthful labor force.
Over the next five years, Uganda will focus on addressing the challenge of low labor productivity by:
- Strengthening the foundation for human capital
- Improving population health and safety
- Improving population management
- Expanding social protection
- Institutionalizing and integrating human resource planning and development and;
- Developing a functional labor market information system.
With Government’s commitment to the above agenda, the proportion of labor force transiting to gainful employment and enterprise development is expected to increase from 34.5% to 55%; the average years of schooling are expected to increase from 6.1 to 11years; the under 5 mortality rate is expected to reduce from 64/1000 live births to 52/1000 live births and; the maternal mortality rate is expected to reduce from 336/1000 live births to 299/1000 live births.