In the past, security generally was concerned about the protection of territories of nation states. It also largely resonated with the role of the military alongside conventional military hardware and prowess in preventing territorial aggression. Today, the geopolitical landscape has changed a lot and insecurity can be seen in various dimensions including lack of essential services – poverty, unemployment, poor health care, diseases, climate change to mention but a few. Indeed, the absence of war, does not equate to peace and stability.
Civil conflicts and interstate wars are merely the most obvious manifestations of political violence. The un-employment problem has the potential to escalate again into civil war when the government is perceived to be supporting, tacitly or otherwise, one communal group at the expense of others.
National security refers to the safekeeping of the nation as a whole. It is also important to note that the concept of national security is sub-divided into several elements, namely, economic security, social security, political security, environmental security, food security, minerals and natural resources security heath security, among others. All these elements are essential for a stable nation. Once any of these are disrupted, it results into one or more groups perceiving their interests or community to be under threat (insecurity).
Unemployment is indeed a serious threat to national security because unemployed individuals sometimes lack food, essential services and means of survival. They often resort to crimes in order to make ends meet. But more importantly, when people’s livelihoods are threatened for reasons such as subjugation, injustices, marginalization, unfairness in resource allocation, it automatically leads to discontents.
The focus on human development of developing countries like Uganda is exceedingly critical. This is because, if human development is not met, people’s livelihoods are distorted. This often present fertile grounds for which political actors and demagogues use to mobilize people into violence and violent resurgence.
The Ugandan unemployment is one of the greatest puzzles that government needs to address. Unemployment cannot solely be addressed by a few monetary and fiscal measures but rather a concerted and deliberate effort to build a strong sustaining economy, that is self-reliant, productive and industrialized. Industries whether small scale, medium or large scale are drivers of growth.
Industries create jobs for unemployed youths, encourages investments in domestic economy, provides incomes to government through taxation and often has long term benefits for growth and development. This requires sacrifices in the short run. Example can be drawn from Ethiopia, which is one of the fastest growing African economies but also the short term sacrifices in that country have made many Ethiopians poor in addition to immediate gains they could have enjoyed. However, the long term benefits outweigh the short term losses that are accrued.
Unemployment typically occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks but in vain. The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labor force.
There is no doubt that widespread unemployment is a key cause of criminal tendencies, insurgency, insecurity or civil war. This is despite the fact that there is barely any reliable evidence on unemployment for many developing countries.
Uganda has one of the youngest populations in the world with roughly 70% of the population aged under 25 years and 58% of the population aged under 18 years. The National Youth Policy defines “youth” as all persons between 12-30 years old.
Uganda is one of the fastest growing countries in population ranking only at number 6 with an annual growth rate of 3.3 % and is therefore the third fastest growing country in Africa after South Sudan and Niger. With a fertility rate of 6 births per woman on average, Uganda also belongs to the ten most fertile countries in the world. This very high population growth expresses itself in the total population of Uganda, which grew from 24.3 million people in 2000 to an estimated 38.9 million in 2014.
Therefore, the challenge to human development is one of the most significant security threats that countries like Uganda should be addressing other than perceived threats emanating from direct electoral violence for instance. For example, during the January 14th general elections government of Uganda shut down internet citing security threats arising from protesters communicating misinformation on social media and using such platforms as tools to mobilize groups.
However, it’s important for government to understand that while elections are emotive in character, the mobilization of groups into violence is always propagated by actors following long periods of unmet needs, grievances and marginalization. Unemployed youths for example may feel neglected and their major grievances with the political system is the failure to address their situations that are often threatening their livelihoods and existence. These feelings of marginalization and the unknown future always elicit negative emotions during periods of political campaigns like we have seen. Its these state of affairs that politicians and other actors riding on these core issues easily lure people into violence.
In the past the Centre for Multilateral Affairs have highlighted the urgent need for government to address the human security needs of its populace. This requires prioritization of what is really critical to the human security needs and development of citizens. Government must understand that addressing massive unemployment rates in Uganda cannot be achieved without addressing the core strategy for economic growth in this country. The Ugandan economy with its highly market led strategy of development has far reaching consequences on sustained growth and development, perhaps due to the negligible influence the strategy makes on overall economic performance.
Economic growth must be achieved through sustained policy shifts, commitments of government through empowerment of local skills men, industrialists, craftsmen – incentivizing domestic workers and investors and powering the Ugandan economy to produce and export quality products and services. Once local industries, businesses are protected and encouraged to grow and develop, they have the potential to compete with others. This is exactly the essence of the Adam’s Smiths 18th Century ‘Invisible hands’ model of growth which emerged after Britain had protected its industries and industrialist and they were strong enough to compete, there was no further need for protection – hence the free market theory.
Most developed countries did those very things; often protecting their infant industries and skills men, empowering them to a point when they are strong enough before opening the space for them to compete with others. Uganda must rethink its economic development strategy in order to avert the growing unemployment threat which indeed, is a ticking time bomb and in that regard, a real national security threat to grapple with.
Musana Jaffer,
Is an Associate Researcher with the Centre for Multilateral Affairs
