In Uganda, one in four women give birth by the age of nineteen and about a half of these, the pregnancies are unintended. The determinants of adolescent pregnancy are complex, multidirectional, multidimensional and vary signifi cantly across regions, age and income groups, families and communities.

The consequences of early childbearing are severe, including death which occurs during pregnancy and delivery. For the individual teenagers, early childbearing has potential to disrupt their healthy development into adulthood, it impacts negatively on their education aspirations, livelihoods, health and future social economic productivity. The households and communities are compelled to shoulder an extra burden in supporting the young mother and her child but also may lose the dividends hadn’t early motherhood intersected with childhood. Moreover, early childbearing has a direct fi nancial cost to the government budgets, expenses and is a key constraint to harnessing the Demographic Dividend.

Preventing teenage pregnancy is therefore essential for Uganda’s economic development. It leads to high economic returns and offers the best guarantee of a productive workforce in the future. Further, a reduction in early childbearing and unintended pregnancies would enable families to reap savings in maternal and child health care and boost young women’s education and economic prospects. It saves the government millions of shillings that are spent on reproductive health care of teenage mothers notably, antenatal and postnatal care, fi stula repair and post abortion care. This is a journey that UNFPA has collaboratively walked with several other actors and will continue to so adopting multisectoral approach that aim to develop girls’ human capital, focus on their agency to make decisions about their reproductive health, and promote gender equality and respect for human rights. At UNFPA, we are dedicated to supporting young people fulfi ll their potential and transit to responsible adulthood.