The Executive Director of the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU) has called for unity among members to help get people into business and stay there.
Gideon Badagawa made the call on Wednesday during a press conference organized to unveil the success of the Skills Development Facility (SDF) in Nakasero, Kampala.
“We need to unite in the private sector. This will help us tap into the merits of projects like the SDF,” Bagadawa said on Wednesday.
Government of Uganda received credit from the World Bank towards implementation of the Uganda Competitive Fund for employer-led short-term training (Uganda Skills Development Fund -USDF).
The Skills Development Facility is part of the $100 million Uganda Skills Development Project (USDP) which is a Government of Uganda Project funded by the World Bank, implemented by the Private Sector Foundation Uganda.
It aims at promoting employer-led short term training in order to address prevailing skills imbalances and shortages in Uganda. An important element of the initiative is to enhance skills and to facilitate collaboration between training providers and industry to promote demand driven skills development with special attention to innovative modes of training.
At the conference, it was revealed that a whopping 46, 556 employees and interns were skilled under the program.
The facility which is a 5-year project is being implemented through a Grant Facility mechanism that will be co-financed by the private sector through a matching grant contribution, and support training activities that lead to improved productivity and competitiveness in the formal and informal sectors.
The project development objective of the Skill Development Project for Uganda is to enhance the capacity of institutions to deliver high quality, demand-driven training programmes in target sectors.
Based on the programmes the Facility initially focus on three sectors; Agriculture, Construction and Manufacturing. However, the Grants committee may consider other sectors for inclusion for funding after the first call for proposals have been received and potential grantees awarded.
PSFU paraded some representatives of companies who have undergone trainings under the program. The beneficiaries present were, Moses Semulimi (Katwe Metal Fabricators), Moses Ndiwalana (Steel & Tube Industries) and Patrick Karuhanga Mbonye. They all praised PSFU for extending the grant in their testimonies and urged the foundation to continue with the program.
The SDF has been sub divided into four Funding Windows that target various categories of beneficiaries in the formal and informal sectors.
