NUYEP
Northen Uganda Youth Enterprise Project
What is
NUYEP ?
The Northern Uganda Youth Entrepreneurship Project (NUYEP) is a social and economic empowerment programme aimed at improving the livelihoods of 10,800 youth and their families through entrepreneurship
NUYEP – implemented by Enterprise Uganda and Youth Business International and funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) – used a combined approach: focusing on mindset-change training, business follow-ups, and personalised support such as mentoring. Between June 2013 and March 2016 NUYEP targeted young people aged 18 to 35 in the Greater North of Uganda, covering five sub-regions: Acholi, West Nile, Lango, Teso and Karamoja.
Regions of Focus
WestNile
2,977 Youth Trained
Male – 58%
Female – 42%
Youth Business Impact
1,245 started
1,26 expanded
Acholi
2,068 Youth Trained
Male – 68%
Female – 32%
Youth Business Impact
753 started
187 expanded
Lango
2,944 Youth Trained
Male – 61%
Female – 39%
Youth Business Impact
1,489 started
287 expanded
Karamoja
1,344 Youth Trained
Male – 38%
Female – 62%
Youth Business Impact
509 started
83 expanded
Teso
2,720 Youth Trained
Male – 53%
Female – 47%
Youth Business Impact
1,247 started
147 expanded
NUYEP'S Obectives
I
- To improve the livelihoods of 10,800 youth (aged 18–35) and their households in Northern Uganda To create and expand 6,000 sustainable youth & family-owned enterprises in Northern Uganda.
II
- To create and expand 6,000 sustainable youth & family-owned enterprises in Northern Uganda.
III
- To change the mindsets and attitudes of youth towards income generating activities.
IV
- To empower and equip youth with practical business skills.
Key Learnings
1
The importance of attitudes — overcoming the ‘dependency syndrome’.
Learnings from NUYEP reinforce the importance of addressing attitudinal barriers faced by youth. This needs to be repeated and revisited throughout the programme through specialised trainings, follow-up visits, mentoring and business counselling. Once this foundation has been set, youth are more likely to successfully take on board skills and business planning training.
INTERVENTIONS
• A training methodology was created to address attitudes of youth participating in the project. It instils a crucial sense of responsibility and motivation to combat the dependency culture common among communities in Northern Uganda.
• The training addresses perceived barriers to starting a business and dispels the myths. For example, many youth believe lots of capital is needed to start. Instead, Enterprise Uganda encourages using idle resources and build up gradually, reinvesting profits to grow for long-term success.
2
Investing time and resources in monitoring, evaluation and technology pays off.
Enterprise Uganda and Youth Business International invested time and resources into building an advanced monitoring and evaluation system, backed-up by cloud-based technology. This system has acted as a compass to keep the programme on track, allowing decisions to be made to improve the programme in real-time and adapt when things aren’t working as planned.
WE’VE LEARNED THAT
• The right technology to protect, store and perform basic analysis is crucial when processing large amounts of data.
• The technology system adds an additional layer of automated data quality assurance, which is important when collecting data on such a large scale.
• Quality monitoring and evaluation requires resources: a conscious decision regarding the level of data and information needed must take place at the start of a programme for this to be effective.
• Information should only be collected if there is a clear user case for it to feed into learning or decision-making.
• The training addresses perceived barriers to starting a business and dispels the myths. For example, many youth believe lots of capital is needed to start. Instead, Enterprise Uganda encourages using idle resources and build up gradually, reinvesting profits to grow for long-term success.
3
Follow-on support is crucial to improve chances of success for business start-ups.
Emerging findings show that youth who receive additional follow-on support, e.g. specialised training, business counsellors or mentors have a better chance of surviving and thriving than those who received only one initial training intervention.
INTERVENTIONS
- Enterprise Uganda provided a series of follow-on support: testimonies from role models; specialised training in customer care, book-keeping and marketing; reinforcing important attitudinal messages; and mentoring and counselling services for potential ‘high-flyers’.
4
Well-targeted partnerships help increase the quality, scale and sustainability of the programme and deepen impact.
INTERVENTIONS
• Enterprise Uganda partnered with VSO’s YDP programme – signposting youth between the YDP and NUYEP programmes to provide a comprehensive package of support that includes deep, practice-based entrepreneurship and attitudinal training with vocational skills-building. The programmes learned it is crucial to incorporate entrepreneurship as a key part of vocational training rather than as separate interventions.
• Organisations, such as Marie Stopes, were invited to share life skills training, including sexual and reproductive health training – an effective way to confront some cross-cutting issues affecting.
• Meet Your Partner” sessions enabled stakeholders/ service-providers (e.g. banks, Microfinance Support Centre, TASO, Uganda Registration Services Bureau) to meet with NUYEP beneficiaries. Young entrepreneurs showcased their businesses, sought advice, and explored ways to work with- and/or receive additional support.
• Regional workshops allowed key government officials (e.g. parliamentary members, policy-level staff, sub county chiefs), similar programmes, mentors, counsellors to meet with NUYEP beneficiaries to share key learnings and successes, and assess how these can be replicated in other regional programmes.
