Tag Archives: associated

The impact of immigration in Uganda

The issue of immigration has taken center stage in domestic, regional and international debates. Global economic hardship and the associated high unemployment as well as demographic dynamics have triggered the resurgence of interest in reviewing the benefits and costs of immigration. In Uganda concerns about immigrants’ disproportionate participation in the economy, politics and security forces are being expressed in various forums. Globalization and East African economic integration processes have opened Uganda gates to all kinds of immigrants with serious political, economic, moral and cultural repercussions.

Uganda’s story about immigration goes back to the 1920s. Pull economic factors as Uganda began cultivating cotton and later coffee that required a lot of labor and push political and economic factors in neighboring countries especially then Rwanda-Urundi resulted in many immigrants entering Uganda in search of work. Other immigrant workers came from Kenya and then Tanganyika. They located in areas where they could find jobs according to their skills. Those with herding skills went to cattle herding areas in all parts of the country particularly in Ankole, Buganda, Eastern and Northern Uganda. Those with farming experience found jobs in cotton and coffee growing areas in Buganda and parts of Eastern Uganda. Some workers returned to their countries of origin, others stayed. Some of those who stayed married local women, adopted local languages and culture and got completely assimilated. Others adopted local languages and names but married women mostly from their country of origin or from their ethnic groups already in Uganda and resisted assimilation or Ugandanization.

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The guerrillas gave us NRM and are taking our land

The task of a researcher is to identify problems and make recommendations for policy makers to act on. A lot has been written and published about Uganda but much more remains to be done to identify challenges especially those related to globalization and East African community and the associated influx of foreigners looking for land to own.

Uganda is a country whose economy and livelihood of her people depend on land for food and foreign exchange. The land has been worked and owned by peasants for centuries. British colonial authorities respected and protected that age-old tradition. In 1986, NRM government presented a people-centered ten-point program confirming that land belongs to the people. It gave an assurance that peasants who lost their land due to political instability and/or faulty policies would get it back.

In 1987, the government launched structural adjustment with a major policy shift and a potential adverse impact on peasants. Private sector and market forces would drive Uganda’s economy and the distribution of assets. Studies were conducted that emphasized large-scale farming as a more appropriate model for speeding up economic growth and transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture. In other words, peasants were presented as less productive than large-scale farmers and should give way to the latter. Other studies supported rapid urbanization as the fastest path to Uganda’s development, implying rural-urban influx to create room for large farmers. Free mobility and settlement would be facilitated through various instruments.

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The NRM government succeeded abroad, failed at home

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government came to power in 1986, it inherited an empty treasury and many problems that needed vast amount of foreign currency. The export sector and tax base had collapsed. The government tried to raise money through bilateral engagement with western governments to no avail. It was advised to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) first (New African 1987-88). The IMF and World Bank were looking for another African country to experiment stabilization and structural adjustment programs (SAPS) model which had failed in Ghana. Paul Nugent (2004) observed that “…Ghana quietly dropped off the World Bank/IMF list of high performers, to be replaced by other countries like Uganda”.

The signing of a structural adjustment agreement between the IMF and the government in 1987 was of mutual benefit to both parties. It gave the IMF and World Bank the opportunity to introduce a rapid and comprehensive (shock therapy) form of structural adjustment which included inflation control to single digits, balanced budget, economic liberalization and privatization of public enterprises, export diversification and labor flexibility. Donor funds would be released contingent on adherence to the terms of the agreement.

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