The United Nations Population Fund representative Kristine Blokhus has urged lawmakers to place population dynamics at the center of national development planning, warning that rapid growth without corresponding investments in health, education and employment could undermine the country’s goal of attaining upper-middle-income status by 2040.
Speaking during a parliamentary induction seminar in Kampala, UNFPA Representative to Uganda Kristine Blokhus said the decisions made by the 12th Parliament over the next five years would determine whether the nation’s growing youthful population becomes an economic asset or a missed opportunity.
“The decisions that you make over the next five years will determine whether Uganda’s extraordinary demographic moment becomes the country’s greatest asset or a missed opportunity,” Blokhus told legislators.
Uganda’s population is estimated at 49 million and is growing at nearly 3% annually. About three-quarters of the population is under 30, and the median age is just 16, making Uganda one of the youngest countries in the world.
Blokhus said a youthful population alone does not guarantee economic growth. She explained that countries realize a demographic dividend only when the working-age population is healthy, educated, skilled and productively employed, while the number of dependents is relatively low. She noted that Uganda currently has about 84 dependents for every 100 working-age people, compared with about 42 per 100 in countries such as South Korea.
“The important thing is not that family size should be large or small. Parents should have the number of children they can care for,” she said, arguing that large dependency burdens reduce household savings and limit investment.
Blokhus warned that without sustained investment in human capital, a rapidly growing population could become an economic burden rather than a driver of development.
“A large youth population does not automatically guarantee a demographic dividend. If young people are unhealthy, uneducated, underemployed or become parents before they are ready, they add to the dependency burden instead of driving economic growth.”
She identified teenage pregnancy as one of Uganda’s biggest demographic and economic challenges, saying one in four Ugandan girls becomes pregnant before the age of 18—equivalent to about 1,000 girls each day.
According to UNFPA estimates, teenage pregnancy costs Uganda about US$182 million annually in healthcare expenditure alone, excluding the long-term economic losses associated with reduced educational attainment, lower incomes and lost productivity.
Blokhus urged Parliament to prioritise keeping girls in school, describing education as one of the most effective investments for unlocking Uganda’s demographic dividend.
“We always say that we plan from the perspective of the 10-year-old girl. When we talk about the potential of the girl, what we’re really talking about is the potential of the nation.”
She also called on legislators to strengthen investment in healthcare, including reproductive health services, create decent employment opportunities for young people and expand social protection programmes to protect vulnerable households.
While acknowledging Uganda’s progress in reducing maternal and child mortality and increasing life expectancy from 47 years in the 1990s to 68 years today, Blokhus cautioned that those gains would only be sustained through continued public investment.
She dismissed suggestions that population policy is about limiting family size, explaining that Uganda’s population will continue to grow for the next four to six decades because of what demographers describe as population momentum.
“The question is not whether the population grows,it is going to grow. The question is who those people will be. Will they be healthy, educated, skilled and equipped to build the country, or not?”
She urged MPs to use their legislative, budgetary and oversight roles to ensure Uganda’s demographic transition translates into inclusive economic growth.
