Agency for Transformation (AfT) is a think and do tank working with smallholder farmers and youth to transform East Africa. Why is it that at the root of this agenda- are farmers (including their businesses, organizations and institutions) and the youth? For countries across East Africa and Uganda in particular, farmers are crucial anchors of transformation because they produce food and wealth in rural areas. It is a simple, but so often forgotten truth; they establish new enterprises that bring forth employment and an expansion of livelihoods. Public policy has not quite grasped this position on the wide continuum. The youth on the other hand constituteroughly 70% of Uganda’s population, which by inference means, a productive youth population is vital for the country’s prosperity. Unfortunately, youth unemployment is at crisis level with thousands of youth released into the job market annually unable to find work.
| AfT is a National level NGOthatchampions innovative thinking about agriculture and offers new directions for agricultural practice. We are a prenier voice that questions the agriculturalsystem that reproduces subsistence farmers yearafter year against the much neededtransformation beheld in Uganda’s NationalDevelopment Plan |
Thus, the structural transformation of the economies in East Africa would inevitably have to steer these two segments of the population out of the shadows of economic activity for a real shot at sustainable growth.
