For decades, Karamoja has been portrayed through the lens of extreme poverty, recurring climate shocks, and systemic underdevelopment. Yet beneath these persistent, problem-focused narratives lies the region’s greatest untapped asset: its young people. If there is one strategic investment capable of fundamentally transforming Karamoja’s future, it is investing intentionally in its youth. Not merely as passive beneficiaries of aid, but as co-designers, leaders, and strategic partners.
The old saying, “We shall not wait for Karamoja to develop,” has never carried more urgency. It forces us to confront a striking paradox: how can a region with one of Uganda’s youngest populations continue to endure some of the country’s highest levels of deprivation? According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS, 2024), nearly 74% of Karamoja’s population lives below the poverty line, almost three times the national average of 27%. At a time when the global community is striving to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals and their central promise to leave no one behind by 2030, Karamoja’s young population remains acutely sidelined.
These figures tell a sobering story, but they can also tell a different one.
Karamoja has one of Uganda’s youngest populations. What if we began to see that not only as a development challenge, but as a demographic dividend?
This question is particularly important when we consider child marriage, child labour and trafficking.
The recent Growing up in Karamoja study, undertaken by the AfriChild Centre and the Freedom Fund, provides important insight into the realities children face in Moroto and Napak. Rather than looking at child marriage and child labour as isolated practices, the research highlights how poverty, drought, food insecurity, loss of livelihoods and limited opportunities can narrow the choices available to children and families.
Child marriage is a form of forced marriage when children cannot provide free and informed consent, while trafficking and the worst forms of child labour can expose children to forced labour and other forms of exploitation. Poverty and lack of economic alternatives can increase vulnerability to these forms of exploitation.
In Karamoja, therefore, addressing modern slavery cannot only mean responding after exploitation has occurred. It also means addressing the conditions that make children vulnerable in the first place—and expanding the choices available to them.
That is where young people become central to the solution.
When the Freedom Fund began its work in Karamoja in 2024, it partnered with six local organisations during an inception phase to better understand the context and develop locally relevant responses to child marriage, child labour and trafficking.
Alongside this programme, the Freedom Fund partnered with AfriChild to generate deeper evidence through the Growing Up in Karamoja research.
Young people, including girls with lived experience of child marriage and child labour, were not simply research subjects. Their experiences and perspectives helped deepen our understanding of the realities behind the statistics.
And importantly, that engagement did not end when the research was completed.
Through the Youth Advisory Panel, young people have continued to shape the programme—providing perspectives on programme design, contributing feedback on partner proposals, engaging with programme teams and partners, and participating in discussions about what effective solutions should look like.
They are now also increasingly taking their place in public conversations, sitting alongside researchers, community practitioners and government representatives, and sharing their own experiences and perspectives.
Sustainable transformation cannot be achieved by designing interventions for young people without actively involving them in shaping those solutions. Across Karamoja, there is a growing realization that youth must transition from being treated as vulnerable subjects to acting as primary decision-makers, as outlined in the National Youth Action Plan 2021–2026. This shift is especially vital when tackling deeply rooted practices like child marriage and forced labor, which require challenging social norms that have traditionally suppressed girls’ voice, agency and decision-making power (UNICEF, 2016).
Perhaps this is one of the most important lessons emerging from Karamoja.
A statistic can tell us how many children are engaged in child labour. A young person can help us understand why they work, what they hope to achieve through that work, and what alternatives they would choose if those alternatives existed.
A statistic can tell us that child marriage remains a challenge. A girl with lived experience can help us understand what it means when decisions about her education, relationships and future are made without her voice.
A statistic can tell us that poverty rates are high. Young people can help us understand what poverty actually means in the daily decisions families make when food is scarce, livelihoods are disrupted and options become limited.
This is the untapped strength that the Freedom Fund is beginning to bring to the surface. Young people are not only experiencing the challenges we seek to address; they hold knowledge that can help us design better solutions.
And there is evidence that they want to contribute. As the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University has observed, young people are the “fulcrum of the community.”
The question is whether the systems around them will create the space for that potential to be realised.
While government agencies, civil society and international partners have increasingly recognized the importance of youth empowerment, many existing efforts remain fragmented, short-term and underfunded relative to the magnitude of the challenge. Karamoja urgently requires a coordinated, long-term commitment that embeds youth leadership at the core of regional planning, resource allocation, and policy execution.
True youth participation extends far beyond inviting young people to fill seats at conferences. It means establishing permanent mechanisms where adolescents co-design interventions, challenge harmful social norms, hold institutions accountable, and receive direct funding and mentorship to execute their own solutions.
Karamoja’s demographic dividend will not be realized simply because its population is young. It will be realized only when young people are recognized as equal partners, trusted with real authority, and given the resources to shape their own destiny. The future of Karamoja will not be built for its youth; it will be built with them.
Photo credit: Elijah Ecru/The Freedom Fund
