The Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Youth Affairs, UPFYA, has launched a five-year legislative agenda aimed at putting youth concerns at the centre of parliamentary debates, committee work and national budget negotiations.
The National Youth Legislative Agenda 2026–2031 was unveiled at the National Youth Symposium 2026, with its architects seeking to move young people from petitioning for government action to influencing the laws, policies and budgets that shape their lives. The agenda identifies unemployment, access to entrepreneurial financing and legislative accountability among the key priorities requiring sustained attention from Parliament and government.
Its launch comes as Uganda implements the Fourth National Development Plan, NDP IV, amid a rapidly growing youth population and persistent concerns over employment and economic opportunities. Uganda’s population was estimated at 45.5 million in 2023, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, of whom 10.9 million, or 24 percent, were young people aged between 18 and 30.
With the population projected to grow at about three percent annually, an estimated 370,000 young people will enter the youth category each year during the NDP IV period, pushing the number to a projected 13.5 million by 2030. For the organisers of the new legislative agenda, the numbers underline the need for youth concerns to move beyond political promises and become part of the country’s formal decision-making processes.
The framework is based on priorities identified through consultations involving young people, youth leaders, government officials and civil society organisations. In July 2026, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, NIMD Uganda, and UPFYA commissioned a study to examine youth priorities and provide evidence for the development of the agenda.
The findings were subsequently validated and presented at the National Youth Symposium.
The intention is to create a mechanism through which young people can follow and influence the entire policy process — from the development of laws and policies to parliamentary scrutiny, budgeting and implementation. Ivan Ahura, president of the fourth cohort of the Uganda Democracy Academy, said young people must combine demands for change with responsibility for participating in and strengthening democratic institutions.
Addressing graduates of the academy, Ahura said the programme had demonstrated that young Ugandans from different political and social backgrounds can find common ground.“Those different contexts can help us produce a common understanding,” he said, identifying the shared aspiration as building “a democracy that works.”
Ahura said young people should not wait for others to solve the challenges facing democratic institutions but should contribute to finding solutions.The message was echoed by Jacklyn Jolly Tukamushaba, Deputy President of the National Unity Platform in charge of Western Uganda, who urged young people to organise and actively pursue opportunities to participate in national affairs. She said young people should “organise, generate ideas and claim space.
”The emphasis on participation also featured in remarks by Justine Kasule Lumumba, Secretary General Emeritus of the National Resistance Movement and Minister of ICT and National Guidance. Lumumba challenged young people to look beyond political competition and become more involved in monitoring government commitments.
She urged them to follow political manifestos beyond campaign periods and establish whether promises made to voters are reflected in government work plans and budgets. “Who follows up on the manifestos?” she asked. Lumumba said meaningful participation should begin when policy ideas are developed and continue through implementation and evaluation.
Dr Charles Ayume, Minister of State for Health in charge of Primary Health Care and MP for Koboko Municipality, who presided over the launch, said the new blueprint provides a framework for connecting youth concerns to legislative and budgetary processes. Ayume said the framework should help make public policy more responsive to the concerns of young citizens.
Maj Gen (Rtd) Gregory Mugisha Muntu, president of the Alliance for National Transformation, ANT, challenged young people to look beyond the immediate problems they face and examine the underlying governance issues that have affected successive generations.
Muntu urged young people to reflect on why longstanding governance challenges have remained unresolved and called for political parties to have members who put the national interest ahead of narrow or material interests. He also said values developed during young adulthood would influence the quality of leadership young people provide in the future.
The new legislative agenda therefore places youth participation beyond simply demanding government programmes. It seeks to give young people a structured role in shaping legislation, scrutinising government programmes and influencing how public resources are allocated-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
