Kampala — THE Government has earmarked sh30b to fight unemployment among the youth, a government official has said.

The youth commissioner in the gender and labour ministry, Kyateka Mondo, said the funds would be used for capacity building and developing projects for the youth.

"The money was secured on the directive of President Yoweri Museveni. A cabinet sub-committee will soon publicise strategies on how this money would be utilised," he said.

Mondo was speaking during the launch of the two-year Uganda's Youth Civil Society Organisation empowerment project by the Uganda Youth Network at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala recently.

The Government is working with various development partners to introduce youth holiday programmes to protect them from being idle, he added.

Mondo noted that of the 390,000 youth who enter the labour market every year, only 130,000 get employed, leaving over 260,000 jobless.

The programme, he said, would empower the youth to seek employment in a bigger East Africa federation.

The chairperson of the Uganda Youth Network, Francis Gimara, said they had injected sh500m into the project.