In many ways, Uganda is like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is a country that was created by the British for ruthless exploitation to benefit the mother country. Following Lord Frederick Lugard’s and Winston Churchill’s visits to Uganda and their appreciation not only of the beauty of the country, fertility of soils, plenty of rainfall and abundance of water in rivers and lakes, moderate climate, a unique biodiversity system and above all, it’s dynamic and innovative people – ‘the Chinese and Japanese of Africa’ – a decision was taken that Uganda would become a center for producing tropical commodities that would feed Britain and the rest of the world.
Reports from travelers, missionaries and explorers are unanimous about communities that later formed Uganda in 1894. They produced a wide range of food crops, herded livestock (cows, goats and sheep) and kept poultry, manufactured a wide range of products of good quality and traded surplus in local and regional markets in eastern and central Africa. Specialization according to ecological comparative advantage (fisheries, herding, manufacturing and crop cultivation) increased productivity and total production. At family level, there was a complementary division of labor. Men cleared fields, hunted for game meat, tended livestock, built houses, carried crops from the field to the homestead and defended the family while women sowed, weeded and harvested crops, cooked, cared for the home and tended to children. Domestic foodstuffs were supplemented by a wide range of wild fruits and vegetables and wild game. These pre-colonial communities enjoyed a comfortable standard of living and accumulated capital. All this changed after Uganda became a British territory through destructive ‘pacification wars’ especially in Bunyoro Kingdom.
The colonial structure of the economy changed from balanced agricultural, manufacturing and regional marketing enterprises and networks to a focus on production of agricultural produce for export in exchange for imported manufactured products. The first blow was the destruction of manufacturing enterprises and regional markets and the jobs they had created. The second blow was the unequal division of the country into economic growth zones in Buganda and Busoga and labor reserves in northern and western regions. The introduction of taxes payable only in cash and the prevention of cash crop production in labor reserve areas forced men to seek jobs in economic growth zones where cotton and later coffee were grown for export. This change interfered with gender division of labor in labor reserve zones, forcing women to grow food on the same plot over and over as men were not available to clear fresh fields. Availability of game meat declined as hunting was a male responsibility. Thus agricultural productivity and availability of game meat went down causing food insecurity and related problems such as malnutrition especially of women and children and birth of underweight children because mothers were malnourished. The creation of national parks and forest reserves (out-of-bounds as hunting grounds and food gathering) and the spread of tsetse flies and other bovine diseases further reduced the supply of meat, fruits and vegetables and increased food insecurity.
In zones of export-oriented economic growth, the best land and economically active labor was devoted to production of cotton and coffee for export. The growing of food crops was shifted to less fertile soils leading to reduced productivity and food shortages. During the first and second World Wars, Uganda men were recruited into the army and women produced food for troops. Famines were experienced and signs of malnutrition became visible. The government introduced famine crops – mostly cassava which grows well in poor soils and drier areas and needs little labor and stores well in the soil. However cassava is nutritionally poor. Thus there was a shift from more nutritious millet, sorghum and beans to less nutritious cassava, maize and plantains/banana. Although fisheries were developed to provide an affordable source of protein, many Ugandans especially mothers and children continued to suffer serious under-nutrition.
The state of impoverishment was captured in a statement issued by the Secretary General of the ruling party, Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) on the eve of independence in 1962. He reported that “We [Ugandans] have inherited from the departing colonialism, an impoverished suffering African mass, predominantly dependent on traditional agriculture, with very low living conditions… with a very high mortality rate and a host of other social monsters of mankind” (A. M. Kirunda-Kivejinja 1995).
During UPC I from 1962 through 1970, the government tried to return the country from impoverishment to prosperity. It made great and commendable progress. The World Bank recorded that between 1963 and 1970 “Uganda’s social indicators [education, health, diet, clothing and housing]were comparable to, if not better, than most countries in Africa. The country’s health services had developed into one of Africa’s best. Uganda pioneered many low-cost health and nutrition programs. There was a highly organized network of vaccination centers and immunization reached 70 percent of the population. Although school enrolment was still low, Uganda’s education system had developed a reputation for very high quality” (World Bank 1993).
Other reports observed that Uganda had one of the richest economies in Africa. Agriculture accounted for 98% of Uganda’s exports, provided employment for over 90% of Uganda’s labor force and accounted for 56% of the GDP. Uganda also had a relatively well developed industrial sector (New African 1987-88).
Obote’s success story was brought to an abrupt end by a foreign organized and directed coup in January 1971. “It took 30 years for the British Foreign Office to release the document which show that Britain and Israel were the real force behind the 1971 Amin Coup against Milton Obote” (New African November 2002).
During the Amin era chaos reigned. Farmers largely abandoned cash crop production and reverted to subsistence farming. Still food stuffs declined sharply. The industrial sector was not only disrupted but also neglected resulting in a decline of production to the tune of 7 percent per annum between 1971 and 1979 (New African 1987-88).
Under UPC II from 1981 to 1985, Obote tried to repeat the success of UPC I. In spite of foreign sponsored guerrilla war (Tiny Rowlands and Libya in New African March 1986) and withdrawal of support by some donors especially the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (New African 1987-88 and George Kanyeihamba 2002), Obote II and his UPC II government made some progress. In three years (1981 to 1983) “Obote… had achieved a near-miracle of stabilization. Consumer prices had fallen… exports were rising and government revenue was rising faster than its spending. Already half the finance needed to launch 140 key projects aimed at boosting agriculture and industry had been raised, and Obote had dispatched a team of senior people to London to try to encourage foreign investors to provide the rest of the money…” (K. Ingham 1994).
When the economy was about to take off into sustained economic growth and social development, Obote was again overthrown abruptly with active foreign participation. Victoria Brittain (1990) has explained that the second Obote government was overthrown by Okello with foreign support. The foreign powers were “interested in seeing another pliable government [like Amin’s] come to power in Uganda”.
What distinguishes Obote from his successors is that although Obote and his governments received donor support, they depended less on foreign advisers than Amin and particularly Museveni governments.
Amin’s period from 1971 to 1979 and Museveni’s from 1986 to the present in 2010 have been marked by social retrogression and impoverishment. In both cases as noted above the influence of foreign domination is undeniable. Bob Astles a British national was a close adviser to Amin as Linda Chalker also a British national has been to Museveni.
The direction of Uganda’s economy by foreigners under NRM government (similar to colonial rule) began in 1987. The country was broke, vulnerable and needed external support to survive after NRM government tried to govern without external involvement for a year and half. The government was therefore in no position to negotiate a good agreement. Linda Chalker, then minister in Thatcher’s government in UK, had advised the government that without entering into an agreement with IMF Uganda had no chance of getting international support (New African 1987-88).
Hon. Kiyonga confirmed it when he reported that “The NRM government therefore decided in 1987 to cooperate with the World Bank and the IMF in order to attract resources for program implementation” (Seminar on the (Uganda) Economy 1990). Indeed in 1987 Museveni announced that $20 million would be allocated to revive Kilembe copper mines (New African 1987-88). But World Bank and IMF support came with stiff conditionality under structural adjustment. One of the conditions was to use foreigners to run Uganda’s economy. A team of young British economists were attached to the key ministry of finance, planning and economic development. Senior Uganda officials were also placed under the supervision of foreigners advisers. “…It was in the national interest to harness these hardworking outsiders, whose salaries were paid for by the World Bank and other donors” (S. Mallaby 2006).
The ministry of finance, planning and economic development and central bank were packed with mostly inexperienced Ugandans who had accepted the ‘shock therapy’ (extreme) version of structural adjustment to place the country under the operation of market forces and individual entrepreneurship (laissez faire capitalism). Under this arrangement, the state/government would have no meaningful role in the economy and social indicators would be improved through an invisible trickle-down mechanism. Emphasis in implementation of structural adjustment program and reporting on economic performance focused on economic growth and per capita incomes, inflation control, balanced budget, foreign reserve accumulation, export diversification, progress in privatization and liberalization of the economy, labor flexibility to allow employers the freedom to determine wages , hire and fire as they saw fit and bring into Uganda foreign workers.
The decline in poverty was assumed to be automatically related to the rate of economic growth. “The World Bank and the IMF believed that poverty must be receding, given Uganda’s growth numbers, other people at the conference [in Paris in 1995) doubted that the tide was lifting everyone” (S. Mallaby 2006).
In 2000 a household survey revealed that Uganda’s population living in poverty had plummeted from 56 percent to 34 percent in a period of eight years (S. Mallaby 2006) and later to 31 percent. Other researchers and commentators doubted the accuracy of these figures and the rosy social picture that was being painted. In a study conducted by ECA (Economic Commission for Africa) it was found that the World Bank and the IMF had been fiddling with figures to suggest that ‘strong adjustors’ like Uganda were enjoying higher rates of growth than ‘weaker adjusters’ implying that poverty was declining faster in former than in latter countries (P. Anyang’Nyong’o 1992).
Other studies have produced different results relating economic growth to poverty reduction. At a conference in 1998, J. G. Speth, former Administrator of UNDP, reported that “It [Uganda] has posted growth rates averaging over 6 percent a year for a decade. Yet two-thirds [66 percent] of the population remain in absolute poverty, and per capita income is only now approaching the level it had attained in 1970 [when Obote’s government was overthrown]” (Development Cooperation Seminar Tokyo, 1999).
Another authoritative study reported that in Uganda the population living (in extreme poverty) below $1 a day between 1990 and 2001 stood at 82.2 percent (A. K. Chowdhury and S. Erdenebileg 2006). The deepening and spreading diseases of poverty such as scabies, jiggers, trachoma, TB, malaria, cholera, respiratory infections, malnutrition, insanity etc have ended the controversy about whose statistics on poverty are correct. The World Bank and the IMF apologized (and they should be commended for that honesty) that some advice had been wrong. The NRM government that had adamantly insisted that poverty had fallen to 31 percent had no choice but to follow suit and apologize, stressing that it had not done what it ought to have done over the last twenty years since 1986. It officially abandoned structural adjustment model in September 2009 and launched a five-year National Development Plan with an emphasis on public and private partnership.
With high poverty levels, deteriorating environment in rural areas (de-vegetation, shrinking and disappearing rivers, lakes and spring wells) and urban areas (flooding, slums, air pollution including noise, traffic jams etc), re-emergence of diseases that had disappeared, increasing human rights abuses including torture, excessive alcohol consumption, domestic violence, breakdown in social and cultural fabric, human sacrifice, traffic accidents and undemocratic governance including rampant corruption and sectarianism, military intervention in electoral processes and rigged elections, Uganda once the ‘Pearl of Africa’ has quietly faded from the international media, joined the ranks of failed states (S. Mallaby 2006) and returned to a status of “an impoverished African mass” as reported by the Secretary General of UPC on the eve of independence in 1962.
This is the sad reality: impoverished people in a rich country on the eve of the second decade in the 21st century.