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Meanwhile, 44 percent of women and 39 percent of men aged 15–49 report experiencing physical or sexual violence. Kristine Blokhus, Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund, warned of a “vicious cycle of vulnerability.”
Uganda’s ambition to grow its economy tenfold by 2040 is facing an unexpected threat: a fast-rising mental health crisis driven by rapid population growth, youth unemployment, and mounting social pressures.
At the launch of the State of Uganda Population Report 2025 (SUPRE 2025) at the Uganda Media Centre on Thursday, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng warned that without urgent reforms, mental illness could quietly erode the country’s Ten-Fold Growth Strategy, which aims to expand the economy from USD 50 billion in 2023 to USD 500 billion by 2040.
“Achieving this aspiration requires a healthy, skilled, productive, and emotionally resilient population,” Dr. Aceng said.
“The truth is simple and unavoidable: the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of strategic action.” Unlike many developed countries grappling with ageing populations, Uganda’s challenge is rapid growth. “Our fertility rate remains around 4.5 births per woman,” Dr. Aceng noted.
“Our population is projected to reach 48.2 million this year, with more than 1.5 million babies born annually, and that is not just this year; it is every year.”
With 73.2 percent of Ugandans below the age of 30, the country is banking on a demographic dividend. But SUPRE 2025 warns that this opportunity could quickly become a liability if young people are left unsupported.
More than half, 50.9 percent, of Ugandans aged 18 to 30 are not in employment, education, or training (NEET), compounding psychosocial stress linked to poverty, urbanisation, and household instability.
“It presents a serious risk if our young people are overwhelmed by unemployment, exclusion, addiction, trauma, and untreated depression,” Dr. Aceng cautioned.
The report reveals that facility-reported mental health cases rose by 71 percent between 2021 and 2024, from 494,326 to 843,295. An estimated 24.2 percent of adults and 22.9 percent of children are affected by mental health conditions, accounting for roughly 13 percent of total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
Yet fewer than one in ten people who need care receive appropriate treatment. “These are not abstract statistics,” the minister said.
“They represent families under strain, classrooms disrupted, workplaces diminished in productivity, and communities carrying silent pain.”
In 2021, Uganda spent UGX 137.3 billion on direct mental health care. Indirect productivity losses from absenteeism and presenteeism reached UGX 696.6 billion, pushing total annual costs to UGX 833.9 billion.
The monetary value of DALYs lost to mental disorders rose sharply from UGX 283 billion in 2000 to UGX 2.96 trillion in 2023. Under a business-as-usual scenario, total economic losses are projected to rise from US$1.1 billion in 2024 to US$4.5 billion by 2040.
Joseph Muvawala, Executive Director of the National Planning Authority, described the findings as a development wake-up call.
“The cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of strategic investment,” Muvawala said, pointing to data gaps and persistent stigma that continue to mask the true scale of the crisis.
Despite the Mental Health Act 2018, services remain heavily concentrated at the referral level, particularly at Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital.
According to Juliet Nakku, Uganda requires 9,661 mental health posts across health facilities, yet only about 4,290 are filled, leaving a gap of more than 5,300 positions, most critically at district and community levels.
“We must shift from a specialist-dependent, hospital-centred model to a community-anchored system,” Dr. Nakku said.
According to Dr. Aceng, the Health Ministry now plans to embed mental health screening into primary health care nationwide, empower Village Health Teams for early detection, strengthen enforcement of the Mental Health Act, and reposition Butabika as a national centre of excellence for training and research.
The report also underscores the links between mental health, sexual and reproductive health (SRH), and gender-based violence (GBV). Adolescents account for nearly a quarter of the population, about 11.4 million young people. One in four girls aged 15–19 has had a child or is pregnant, many unintentionally.
Meanwhile, 44 percent of women and 39 percent of men aged 15–49 report experiencing physical or sexual violence. Kristine Blokhus, Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund, warned of a “vicious cycle of vulnerability.”
Strengthening adolescent-friendly services and voluntary family planning is crucial. As Uganda races toward Vision 2040, planners argue that roads, oil, and industrial parks alone will not deliver prosperity.
Mental health, once seen as a specialist hospital concern, is now being reframed as a core economic and human capital issue under NDP IV.
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