STATEMENT FROM THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA AT THE 2019 NAIROBI ICPD25 SUMMIT

At this historic “Nairobi Summit on ICPD25: Accelerating the Promise”, Uganda makes the following commitments:
1. We re-commit to continue promoting Universal Access to all methods of Family Planning and to reduce the unmet need for family planning from 28% to 10% by 2022. Specifically, the Government of Uganda re-affirms the commitments that we made at the Family Planning Summit in London in July 2017 to increase financial support towards reproductive health and family planning supplies and commodities to the last mile.
2. Noting that Uganda is one of the youngest countries in the world, we commit to annually allocate at least 10% of our maternal and child health resources to adolescent-friendly reproductive health services.
3. Uganda stands firm on eliminating obstacles that stand in the way of girls’ empowerment including teenage pregnancy and child marriage, as well as all forms of Gender Based Violence. We continue to embark on educational reforms aimed at ensuring that girls enrol and stay in school, as well as scale-up investments in technical and vocational education to create employable skills and competencies relevant to the labour market.
4. We will operationalize the National Sexuality Education Policy Framework that we launched in 2018 to provide a formal national direction for sexuality education within Uganda’s schools. We will do this while upholding the positive cultural and religious values of our country.
5. Human Capital Development is a key objective of Uganda’s National Development Plans. Our new National Development Plan III focuses on Sustainable Industrialization for Inclusive Growth, Employment and Wealth Creation in order to leave no one behind. We have created an Innovation Fund that targets investments in youth education, skilling and job creation opportunities. We will ensure that different dimensions of our demographic dynamics and diversity are integrated in planning and budgeting frameworks at all levels across the country.

Modes of engagement:

• Budgetary and financial
  Noting that Uganda is one of the youngest countries in the world, we commit to annually allocate at least 10% of our maternal and child health resources to adolescent-friendly reproductive health services.
• Policy and guidance
  We will operationalize the National Sexuality Education Policy Framework that the Ministry of Education and Sports launched in 2018, to provide a formal national direction for sexuality education within Uganda’s schools.
• Programmatic action
  Our new National Development Plan III will focus on Sustainable Industrialization for Inclusive Growth, Employment and Wealth Creation in order to leave no one behind.