CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE YOUTH LIVELIHOOD PROGRAMME (YLP) TO YOUTH EMPOWERMENT IN HOIMA DISTRICT, UGANDA

The Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) of Uganda is a youth empowerment strategy based on the three pillars of skills development, livelihood support and institutional support. The programme targets and unemployed youths of the country but questions have been asked as to whether the YLP leads to the empowerment of the target group. This paper reports on a study that explored the contribution of the YLP to youth empowerment in Hoima District of Uganda. Using self-administered questionnaires, data were collected from 130 respondents selected randomly from the Youth Interest Groups (YIG) in the District. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse collected data. The study established that YLP faces a range of implementation challenges. The study concludes that while skills development significantly contributes to youth empowerment, results suggest that livelihood support and institutional support do not significantly contribute to youth empowerment. Strategies to enhance empowerment of the youth and suggestions for scaling up activities are given.