Activation Policies for the Poor in OIC Member States
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to only having one employment services bureau to operate, it aims to standardise the employment
services offered to jobseekers by delivering training to the private agencies.
The lack of sufficient job search support is not only due to a lack of funding, it is also linked to the
lack of incentives for jobseekers to register as unemployed and for employers to advertise their
vacancies (although which factor is a cause, and which is a symptom is difficult to establish). In
countries which provide social assistance to the unemployed, the payment of the benefit is often
linked to the individual registering as unemployed. As there is no such social assistance provided to
unemployed people in Uganda, there is no incentive to register with the PES. Incentives for
jobseekers are also limited because whilst the employment service could recommend skills training
to a jobseeker, they do not have the capacity to deliver the training themselves or liaise with training
institutions on behalf of the jobseeker. This is because training institutions are within the remit of
another ministry, the Ministry of Education and Sports.
The lack of coordination is not helped by the structure of government ministries. In a restructure,
the Ministry of Labour was merged into the current MGLSD. This new structure makes it difficult for
employment policy to be established as a priority and to generate coordination in this policy area.
For the most part, jobseekers utilise networks of contacts and find job vacancies advertised in the
newspapers, on the radio and on television. However, many jobs are advertised purely to meet
regulations which require companies to advertise roles and that in many cases an individual will
have already been informally selected to fill the vacancy. In an informal discussion, it was mentioned
that jobseekers are frequently not employed or promoted on merit but on their network and ‘who
they know’.
The severe constraints of the PES mean that there is a significant need for other activation projects
in Uganda. This has been recognised by the government but also by key actors, such as employers,
NGOs and IFIs. A number of skills training programmes are being implemented, for example, which
will be discussed in the following section.
Training
The government, often with support from donor countries and IFIs, has recognised the need to
address skills mismatch, as indicated by the development of Skilling Uganda. However, as previously
mentioned, whilst Uganda does have detailed plans in place to deliver training schemes, actually
implementing policies and projects remains a challenge. Even when vocational skills training is
delivered with the aim of ensuring students are employable, the quality of that training affects
students’ employability. The tools that students use in their training are often old fashioned and
training is therefore not suited to the work students would be carrying out in the workplace. For
example, students that are training to be mechanics tend to learn their skills by working on old cars
that are no longer used by consumers. Once a student moves into the workplace, they are therefore
not equipped to carry out repairs on modern cars.
Despite these challenges, training schemes are being delivered with positive effects for the
vulnerable. Child labour, for example, is still an issue in Uganda, despite legislation being in place
banning it. In 2010, the NGO Platform for Labour Action (PLA) carried out research and found that in
one district of Kampala alone, 12,000 children were working. PLA introduced skills training
measures to support former child workers. The project is called Empowering the Community to
Prevent and Protect Child Domestic Workers and it targets child domestic workers aged between 14
and 17. Generally, activation measures for the poor do not include education measures for children.
However, in this case the target group can be considered as being vulnerable workers. The support
measures used by PLA also include vocational skills training. This is why the example has been
included, despite activation measures not generally being related to children’s education.
Under the project, child domestic workers are identified by Task Force Members who are local
leaders in their community. After a child domestic worker has been identified, PLA approaches the
child’s family or employer and explains why the child should not be working. This can be difficult