UNFPA, Outbox Accelerate youth innovation

November 11, 2016 in Business, Companies by Editor

Kampala November10 – The United nations fund for Population Activities UNFPA and business incubator Outbox have launched the Up-Accelerate programme under which Ugandan youth can propose solutions to their most pressing sexual and reproductive health challenges.

The program is an attempt to address the paradox of low service utilization rates and high teenage pregnancy and HIV prevalence among this age bracket.

“Today many youths are suffering from the effects culminating from lack of information especially in sexual reproductive health and as a result there has been a rise in teenage pregnancies, high prevalence rates of HIV among the youth and yet service utilisation rates among them are particularly low. We believe that engaging the youths to come up with solutions to these challenges will contribute to the lowering of some of these challenges,” UNFPA Assistant Country representative Edson Muhwezi said during the programme’s launch.

James Saka the Executive Director at the National Information Technology Authority says it is time for the country to harness and make use of the enormous potential of the Youth by engaging them in initiatives that require them to be part of the team finding solutions to some of the challenges affecting them.

According to Davide Piga, the Innovations Specialist ESARO UNFPA, applications are open for all Youth who think they have the potential. He adds that the ideas will have be evaluated by a panel of judges that will select four winners of seed funding worth $10,000, training and mentoring from a variety of experts. The competition closes on December 22.