(Source: CIA World Fact book)

Official name:	Republic of Uganda
Form of government:	multiparty republic with one legislative house
Head of state and government:	President Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta MUSEVENI (since seizing power 26 January 1986); assisted by the Prime Minister Apolo NSIBAMBI (since 5 April 1999)
Capital:	Kampala
Official language:	English; Swahili
Monetary unit:	Ugandan shilling (UGX)
Population estimate:	31,367,972 (July 2008 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 50% (male 7,903,935/female 7,789,792)
15-64 years: 47.8% (male 7,528,073/female 7,469,938)
65 years and over: 2.2% (male 284,122/female 392,112) (2008 est.)

Median age:
total: 15 years
male: 14.9 years
female: 15.1 years (2008 est.)

Literacy:
Definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 66.8%
male: 76.8%
female: 57.7% (2002 census)

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$900 (2007 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
Agriculture: 30.2%
industry: 24.7%
services: 45.1% (2007 est.)

Labour force:
14.02 million (2007 est.)

Labour force - by occupation:
Agriculture: 82%
industry: 5%
services: 13% (1999 est.)

Natural resources:
Copper, cobalt, hydropower, limestone, salt, arable land

Agriculture - products:
coffee, tea, cotton, tobacco, cassava (tapioca), potatoes, corn, millet, pulses, cut flowers; beef, goat meat, milk, poultry

Industries:
Sugar, brewing, tobacco, cotton textiles; cement, steel production

Child labour (5-14 years):
Total: 34%
Male: 34%
Female: 33% (1999-2004, source: UNICEF 2006)


Ratified Conventions ILO:
138 on Minimum Working Age
182 on Worst Forms of Child Labour (Source: ILO 2008)

Secondary school enrolment:
Male: 17%
Female: 16%
(Source: UNICEF 2006)

Education expenditures - percent of GDP:
5.2% (2004)

Population below poverty line:
35% (2001 est.)

Ethnic groups
The colonial boundaries created by Britain grouped together a wide range of ethnic groups with different political systems and cultures in Uganda. These differences prevented the establishment of a working political community after independence was achieved in 1962.

Idi AMIN
The dictatorial regime of Idi AMIN (1971-79) was responsible for the deaths of some 300,000 opponents; guerrilla war and human rights abuses under Milton OBOTE (1980-85) claimed at least another 100,000 lives. The rule of Yoweri MUSEVENI since 1986 has brought relative stability and economic growth to Uganda. During the 1990s, the government put forward non-party presidential and legislative elections

Natural resources
Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils, regular rainfall, and sizable mineral deposits of copper, cobalt, gold, and other minerals. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, employing over 80% of the work force.

Stabilized economy
Coffee accounts for the bulk of export revenues. Since 1986, the government - with the support of foreign countries and international agencies - has acted to rehabilitate and stabilize the economy by undertaking currency reform, raising producer prices on export crops, increasing prices of petroleum products, and improving civil service wages.

The policy changes are especially aimed at dampening inflation and boosting production and export earnings. Growth continues to be solid, despite variability in the price of coffee, Uganda's principal export, and a consistent upturn in Uganda's export markets.

Debt relief
In 2000, Uganda qualified for enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief worth $1.3 billion and Paris Club debt relief worth $145 million.

Uganda is subject to armed fighting among hostile ethnic groups, rebels, armed gangs, militias, and various government forces that extend across its borders.

Uganda hosts 209,860 Sudanese, 27,560 Congolese, and 19,710 Rwandan refugees, while Ugandan refugees as well as members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) seek shelter in southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Garamba National Park; LRA forces have also attacked Kenyan villages across the border

(Sources: CIA world fact book, report UNICEF: The state of the world’s children 2006)

(Source: Kids In Need)

Statistics
The Uganda bureau of statistics estimated that 2.7 million children in Uganda are working. According to the most recent national survey, 54% of the working children are aged between 10-14 years and 30% from 15-17. According to statistics from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (2005), close to 23 percent of the working children, aged between 5 and 17, are orphans made by war and HIV/AIDS.

Sectors
Child labour manifests itself in various forms and sectors, such as the informal sector and in the streets, domestic service, in plantation (especially sugar, tea and tobacco), construction sector, fishing, commercial sexual exploitation, children trapped in armed conflict and quarrying/crushing stones.

Civil War
Children have been most vulnerable at the peak of the conflict between the government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda. The LRA abducted as many as 38,000 children and forced them to serve as combatants, bush wives and porters. Many of those children who avoided capture faced similarly dire situations.

The near-total disruption of livelihoods, education and family life caused by the war led more than ten percent of all children to engage in forms of child labour including domestic work, sex work, quarrying, or garbage picking.

HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is another serious threat to children’s living conditions. The AIDS virus has killed off many adult in the country which had not only led to more children being employed but forced many to leave school to support their younger siblings.

Girls
Particularly worrying, is the number of girls who are dropping out of full time education to look after their HIV-positive parents. Girls are more likely to look for employment rather than finish school but many are vulnerable to abuse and become victims of HIV/AIDS themselves.

Free education
Since the introduction of the Universal Primary Education (UPE), which provides for free primary education for all children, remarkable enrolment achievements have been recorded. Enrolments have increased from 2.9 million in 1997 to 7 million children in 2000.

Not affordable
Despite the above gains, it is estimated that close to 21% of the children aged 5-17 years are not attending school. The victims are children who are disadvantaged by poverty, socio-cultural factors or being orphaned. Though education is supposed to be free, poor parents cannot afford the additional obligatory costs such as scholastic materials, school uniform, textbooks and transportation.

School and work
Moreover, many children who attend school are also involved in some form of labour. There is conclusive evidence that work adversely affects educational performance especially for the poorest children. This fact can be recognized from the persistence rate in primary education, which is still very low and estimated at 27%. Dropping out of school, repetition, low academic achievement and failure is a cause for premature participation in the labour market in exploitative activities.