AFFORESTATION
A PARTIAL ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION TO YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN UGANDA
Today, the unemployment rate in Uganda stands at
approximately 83% of the total population thus threatening the economy and
future of the country. This literally means the biggest population of the youth
be it educated or not, lives below the poverty line, Uganda having the youngest
population across Africa! This is a very big question to the leadership of
Uganda and, all manner of mechanics has to be employed to address this menace.
All is
not gone however! Many youth happen to have access to or are even custodians of
large chunks of customary land back home in the villages. If this was put to
productivity say in Agriculture, it would not only increase the incomes of the
youth but also have a ripple effect to the gross domestic product of Uganda.
Today,
climate change possess a very big threat to life across the globe to the effect
that it has become a global concern to the state powers, companies, civil
society, mention. This is so evident in the number of protocols and agreements
that have been signed, case in point; the Kyoto
Protocol of 1997, the United Nations
FrameWork Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, and the just recent Paris Agreemement; all these
seeking lasting or alternative remedies
to this fatal effect. The Paris Agreement in particular envisages a situation
where the global rises in temperature does not exceed 1.5ͦ C and thus a series
of mechanisms we laid out to realize the same.
In
Europe, some companies that are involved in emission of hazardous gases have
resorted to buying oxygen by contributing standard fees as compensation and at
the same time motivation to individuals or Institutions that have committed
themselves to afforestation. This has thus been received by firms/foresters in
terms of Carbon Units produced for
carbon sequestration.
Way Forward
A
campaign of Carbon points for carbon sequestration is one of an urgent call in
Africa and Uganda in particular. If promoted, afforestation would not only mitigate climate change but
also sustainably increase incomes of the many unemployed youths hanging in
urban centres, reduce crime and congestion in city suburbs whereas at the same
time increase Uganda’s productivity and hence GDP as a whole!...This is what they call hitting two birds
with one stone!