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Inspired by the need to provide effective channels for improved and meaningful youth participation in Uganda’s
political and development processes, leaders of the youth leagues of seven political parties established the
Interparty Youth Platform (IYOP) in 2011. In essence, IYOP is a cooperation framework of the youth leagues of the seven major political parties in Uganda, namely: Conservative Party (CP), Democratic Party (DP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Justice Forum (JEEMA), National Resistance Movement (NRM), People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC). The activities of IYOP aim at strengthening leadership capacities for the youth and advancing their influence on the social, political and economic frameworks of Uganda. Furthermore, IYOP serves its members as a forum through which young people are able to network and engage on critical topics of youth related development processes, including democracy and governance, trade, climate change, energy, and peace and security.
This document is the result of the First National Interparty Youth Conference held in July 2013. The Interparty Youth Platform (IYOP), in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), took the occasion to bring together 100 youth leaders from the seven major political parties of Uganda as well as representatives of civil society, the National Youth Council and academia. The conference aimed at offering a forum for young leaders to discuss the development challenges Ugandan youth face and to propose solutions to these challenges.
The final communiqué is a focused summary of the views presented and recommendations made at the event and is organised by how these recommendations target different stakeholders. It is intended to be used in follow-up initiatives addressed to key actors such as government, parliament, political parties, development partners, and the media. As a collection of key demands from youth, the Communiqué presents a very strong and legitimate tool to pursue youth focused advocacy work given that it is a consensus statement of young people from across the country. This includes members of all seven major political parties that are part of IYOP, spanning from the ruling party, over the opposition voices and to parties currently not represented in parliament.
The communiqué is presented in three sections following the thematic areas of the conference which were: economic empowerment, political participation, and social services. Each section presents specific resolutions related calls for action. These are followed by a short paper that contextualises the key issues at hand. The papers authored by Max Walter1 provided the background and input for the conference discussions. They were developed out of desk research and thematic focus group discussions with young Ugandan experts in the respective fields.