The ICT minister, Aggrey Siryoni Awori, said the jobs will be created from the government's new initiative in developing the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector.

The programme, which begins tomorrow, will initially start with training 500 out of the 1,400 youths identified through interviews.
The training, he said, will be at the Makerere University Faculty of Computing and Information Technology.

Awori said adverts were placed in the media and over 4,000 responded from which the 1,400 youths have been identified to participate in the programme, fully sponsored by the Government.
The programme is a partnership between the Government and private sector, which will involve the setting up of a call centre.
The call centre is an initiative of the Uganda Youth Convention (UYC) and other Ugandan entrepreneurs to address the problem of job scarcity, especially for the youth.

"We expect that by the end of this year some 3,000 youths will be employed and earning higher than they would elsewhere. The individuals will work at least five hours a day with a pay of $2-3 (sh4,500 - sh7,000) per hour," he said.

The minister yesterday said the Government had injected sh5b to promote the sector. Other funds would come from the Job Stimulus Programme which is in the Ministry of Finance and the private sector, he said.

This, according to the minister, is one of the strategic intervention being implemented by the Government through the ICT sector to create employment and improve people's income.

If well-implemented the initiative will create opportunities for investors and the business community to make money while providing jobs to the youth like it has happened in India, Awori said.

Business Process Outsourcing is the strategic use of the third party service providers to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff. It is common in the airlines, insurance, banking and energy sectors. Awori said there is a growing demand for ICT outsourcing in Africa that Uganda needs to capture.

"BPO has two categories including; back office outsourcing which involves internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing which includes customer-related services such as marketing or technical support," Awori said.

He said the programme cuts cost and improves efficiency by outsourcing services of a distant skilled work force.

Awori said the ministry and National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U) have already developed a road map for the implementation of BPO model for Uganda.

Awori noted that with only 40% of the graduates being absorbed in the formal job sector, the BPO would be able to employ a large number of graduates both for basic routine functions and specialised services.

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