There are sharp differences between NRM and UDU development priorities.
1. For NRM urban and export-oriented economic growth and earning hard currency come first. This is a top-down approach where the people come last through a trickledown mechanism which sadly has not worked since it was introduced in 1987. Furthermore, NRM policy has focused on services in urban areas especially Kampala and its vicinity generating 70 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) with a population of less than 2 million out of 34 million Ugandans. NRM policy is designed to service external markets with food and raw materials first. For UDU Ugandans come first. The majority of Ugandans (over 85 percent) who are poor and unemployed live in rural areas. UDU will therefore formulate a bottom-up and pro-poor economic growth program based on agriculture and rural development (agro-processing, infrastructure such as roads – focusing on constructing permanent bridges with central government support – and affordable energy) thereby serving the people first and directly. In contrast to NRM food production will meet the needs of Uganda first and surplus will be exported to neighboring countries and beyond. With planned increased productivity, Uganda will have enough food for domestic consumption and increase exports. Under NRM policy food exports have undermined supplies for domestic consumption especially of proteins which are exported in beans and fish. Eating non-nutritious foodstuffs such as cassava and maize has resulted in neurological disabilities and insanity, undermining human capital formation.
2. As announced by the prime minister, NRM favors transferring land from small holder to large scale farmers including foreign. However, scientific evidence shows that when adequately facilitated, small holder farmers are more productive, more efficient, more environmentally and more socially friendly than large scale farmers. That is why the international community including the World Bank is supporting them with resource allocation for Uganda small holder farmers as agreed at the latest G8 Summit in USA. UDU will therefore support small holder farmers by easing their access to affordable credit, extension service, transport and communications and marketing facilities. Unlike NRM which has favored extensive method of agriculture and herding through clearing large swathes of vegetation to increase production, UDU will encourage intensive agriculture that will increase productivity per unit of land thereby protecting the environment by reducing de-vegetation.
3. NRM’s priority is macroeconomic stability especially inflation control to single digits and balanced budgets. Inflation control means reducing money in circulation through raising interest rates to discourage borrowing. High interest rates and expensive intermediate manufacturing inputs due to excessive devaluation have resulted in low investment leading to significant reduction in economic growth rate (now at 3.2 percent against a population growth rate of 3.5 percent) and high unemployment and under-employment forcing NRM government to set medium term economic growth rate at a much lower level of 7 percent per annum (previously set at 9-10 percent), making it difficult to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 that require as a minimum 8-9 percent economic growth rate. Demonstrations related to walk-to-work also contributed to reduced economic activity. Balancing the budget especially against reduced economic growth and lower government revenue means that public expenditure will be slashed drastically and the usual victim sectors of education, health and housing will continue to be disproportionately and adversely affected with serious repercussions on human capital formation. Without losing sight of concerns for low inflation and balanced budget, UDU will focus on job creation by reallocating resources within the budget in favor of labor-intensive agriculture and agro-processing, physical and social infrastructure development such as building and repairing roads, clinics, schools and houses. By reducing corruption and mismanagement of public funds, there should be enough revenue without engaging in deficit financing.
4. NRM favors expansion and development of existing urban areas like Greater Kampala. This has two major problems. First, it has attracted rapid rural-urban migration of economically active people that cannot be adequately catered for resulting in high levels of urban unemployment and under-employment, sprawling slums and challenges associated with them including insecurity that forces government to divert development funds into expanding police, prisons, courts and magistrates. Second, urban-oriented economic growth has led to the development of wealthy enclaves or islands surrounded by oceans of mass poverty. UDU prefers the growth of small and medium-sized towns throughout the country. That way rural-urban migration to big towns will be reduced and the benefits of urban growth will be more equitably distributed, ultimately narrowing regional income gaps between southern and northern regions. Since colonial days this divide has been a source of tensions and conflicts.
5. Although NRM talks about the industrialization of Uganda’s economy since 1986, it has no strategy for it. NRM’s policy of full-blown trade liberalization has opened Uganda’s borders that cheap and/or subsidized manufactured imports have crippled domestic industries to the extent that on the whole Uganda is de-industrializing. Some industries have closed shop (steel rolling mills, Bata factory and AGOA factory etc) or moved out of Uganda while others are operating below installed capacity, shedding workers in the process or underpaying those who stay through labor flexibility. UDU believes that no country can transit from subsistence to modern without a manufacturing sector. NRM has tried to transform the economy via the service sector and it has failed. UDU will encourage industrialization by protecting infant and labor intensive manufacturing industries until they are ready to compete in the East African and global markets. WTO rules allow protection of infant industries when there is evidence of unfair competition – and unfair competition exists as witnessed by second hand clothes versus domestic textile factories. Factories will add value, create badly needed jobs and reduce poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy.
6. NRM has a policy, laws and institutions for environmental protection and management. Yet environmental deterioration is taking place in urban and rural areas very fast. Unplanned construction in urban areas has blocked water drainage channels and slums are spreading. De-vegetation, wetland clearance, deforestation and overfishing are destroying plants and animals at a fast speed. Trees have continued to be felled for construction, charcoal and export even in protected areas like Mabira forest. Exposed soils are being washed away by strong winds and heavy tropical rain, water is running off instead of sinking into the ground causing water tables to drop so deep that plants with short roots are dying leading to the development of desert conditions (remember the Sahara was once green with lakes and rivers and animal and human life. It was destroyed by reckless human activity as is happening in Uganda under the NRM administration). Rivers and springs have disappeared or become seasonal and lakes are shrinking. These changes have adversely affected hydrological and thermal regimes that have resulted in rising temperatures and reduced rainfall in amount, timing and duration – hence intense and frequent droughts and floods and decline in agricultural productivity and total production. Warmer climate has resulted in the spread of mosquitoes and malaria is devastating populations that did not have immunity as in Kabale district. Despite warnings of impending environmental catastrophe, Uganda has no plans to arrest and reverse the situation. I do not recall mention of environmental protection in urban and rural areas in the State of the Nation address and the budget speech on June 7 and June 14 2012 respectively. UDU has included in its Plan environmental rehabilitation and management both in rural and urban areas. Denuded areas will be reforested, wetlands restored, and urban construction will make room for water drainage to avoid flooding when it rains as is the case under NRM administration.
7. NRM has approached East African cooperation the wrong way. It wants political federation ahead of economic integration. This is like building a house starting with the roof instead of the foundation. That house will not stand; if it does, it won’t last long. NRM has not identified net benefits to Uganda in the short and long term. A larger market of impoverished consumers will not generate effective demand to attract increased production and trade and an East African passport won’t help anyone who has no money for bus or air fare and hotel expenses. Uganda has since colonial days incurred deficits in East African trade, so why continue along this trajectory. How much national sovereignty is NRM willing to surrender and in which areas and to whom? What areas of national security must be excluded from negotiations? These are pertinent questions that NRM must answer to the satisfaction of Ugandans. We cannot and must not allow NRM to push us into a dark tunnel. The first East African Community (1967-77) was negotiated in a hurry and collapsed within ten years (as an aside privatization of Uganda public enterprises was done in a hurry by NRM and we all know the unhappy consequences of that approach). The problems that undermined the first community still remain especially trade inequality. While UDU supports economic integration and federation in principle, we advocate a cautious approach, step by step without setting deadlines and beginning with economic integration sector by sector to strengthen national development first. Monetary and fiscal policies need to give room to governments to adjust domestic economic policy should that become necessary. We need to learn from those European countries that are not members of the Euro zone. Economic integration should proceed ahead of political federation. In doing all of this we should draw lessons from EU and NAFTA experiences.
8. While NRM has encouraged the export of Uganda’s skilled human power to earn and remit foreign currency to fund Uganda’s development, UDU will encourage its return to participate directly in Uganda’s development process, thereby reducing the very expensive expatriate workers whose knowledge of Uganda’s development processes, history and culture is limited at best.
In conclusion, UDU’s National Recovery Plan (NRP) accessible at www.udugandans.org was prepared by Ugandans after an extensive brainstorming session that brought together Ugandans from all regions and taking into consideration NRM’s failed vision, policies, strategies and programs that in many cases never got off the ground. NRM policies have benefited a few leaving the majority to wallow in absolute poverty estimated at 81 percent according to the latest polls. Unemployment of youth now at over 80 percent and rising, hunger affecting some 33 per cent, increasing functional illiteracy and re-emergence of diseases that had disappeared like jiggers call for a new beginning. The current NRM leadership has lost the will, capacity and relevance (as exhibited by leaders sleeping in the middle of the president’s address to parliament, the nation and indeed the world) under the new development paradigm with an increased strategic role of the state. UDU will promote an economic growth of 9-10 percent annually and will deal with rapid population growth by managing immigration, keeping children especially girls longer at school by providing lunch and empowering women to take care of their reproduction behavior with the help of contraception that minimizes side effects. Thus, family planning will be achieved through poverty reduction, education, remunerative jobs and empowerment of women. Birth control alone is not the answer. The side effects are already causing tremendous problems to those involved.
We call on Ugandans who support the UDU program to join with us so that together we can confront and defeat decisively the challenges that have dogged NRM for 26 years. Please contact: [email protected]. Part two will cover democracy, governance and related issues.