Tag Archives: growth

Population growth is scapegoat for Uganda’s damaged environment

Radio Munansi English program Sunday February 10, 2013

This is Eric Kashambuzi communicating from New York.

Greetings: fellow Ugandans at home and abroad, friends and well-wishers. Welcome to the program. We look forward to your active participation in this interactive conversation.

Since Amin time, population growth has been blamed for Uganda’s problems including environmental degradation in rural and urban areas. There is a rumor that NRM government is about to introduce to parliament a bill limiting family size to three children. This is a blatant violation of human right of couples to decide how many children they wish to have when to have them and how to space them. What the government can do is to facilitate and create conditions to enable Ugandans take informed decisions but not to force them especially by some leaders who have more than three children. It doesn’t make sense to force Ugandans to limit their family size when the government wants to eliminate Uganda borders so that other people from East Africa and beyond come is as they like. These are contradictions and one wonders what the overall goal is as far as Uganda population is concerned. Many countries are protecting their borders to eliminate or limit immigrants but in Uganda and Rwanda they want to abolish national borders. Uganda isn’t going to solve other people’s problems to its detriment. Uganda hasn’t benefited from the East African community in terms of trade, labor and population mobility as we discussed yesterday.

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Why Uganda’s economic growth hasn’t ended poverty

During the guerrilla war and immediately after capturing power in 1986 Yoweri Museveni wrote and spoke regularly and passionately about his determination to end the long suffering of all the people of Uganda. He condemned previous governments for indulging in luxuries while Ugandans languished in poverty, hunger, illiteracy and suffered all sorts of health problems including jiggers. He promised that every Ugandan would wear shoes, go to school, eat balanced meals and get treated when sick. At international conferences, summits, press conferences and interviews Museveni articulated unambiguously his administration’s policies of ending neo-colonialism and pre-industrial culture; of industrializing the economy within fifteen years and protecting industries against unfair competition and of state intervention in Uganda’s economy “because, in reality, there is no such thing as a free market. There is always intervention at some stage”(Africa Forum Volume 1. No.2, 1991). The overall outcome of these policies was to lift Ugandans out of their miserable living conditions. He emphasized that the policy of his administration was not to reduce but eradicate poverty. His ideas were indeed revolutionary and he received long applause. Reporters followed him wherever he went and Museveni enjoyed it. I was there in Addis Ababa and New York where he spoke and I witnessed it all.

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To solve a problem, you have to admit it exists

In Uganda, the problem is not government revenue. Since 1987, Uganda government has had adequate resources from various sources including donations, loans, remittances, debt relief, customs and tax revenue and sale of public enterprises. NRM government has received over $31 billion in donations alone. Uganda does not suffer a shortage of trained and experienced human power either. In fact Uganda has become an exporter of trained personnel. So what is the problem? The problem is President Museveni’s agenda contained in the 50 year Master Plan which is diametrically opposed to what we seek to do to achieve economic growth and development and improved the standard of living for all Ugandans – not to build schools, clinics and promote economic growth without equity. Museveni’s plan is to enrich and empower Bahororo people for control of Uganda in perpetuity. It is incredible but very true! This point must be repeated until it is understood very clearly by all Ugandans, friends and well wishers. Failure to understand this point will undermine all we are trying to do to make Uganda a better place for all citizens. It takes courage and risk to speak up like this but it has got to be done to save the “Pearl of Africa” from colonization – again. The two principle elements that underpin the Master Plan are the deliberate impoverishment of Ugandans by denying them quality education, employment and healthcare including nutrition and access to development resources such as land (without land, education and job you cannot consider yourself a full grown and respectable person) and credit as well as control of the instruments of repression, like the military. It is believed that impoverished, desperate and vulnerable people are easy to govern and they respect leaders without question. They have no knowledge of their rights and freedoms and cannot demand what they don’t know. That is why the middle class that has a questioning mind is declining through unemployment, retrenchment and brain drain. For easy reference, the Master Plan was posted on Ugandans at Heart Forum. Therefore it will not be summarized here. So the first step in solving Uganda’s political economy challenge is a recognition of the principle problem namely the implementation of the 50 year Master Plan led by President Museveni which has been facilitated by staff Museveni has hired and the neo-liberal model NRM adopted in 1987. Let us review the last two points.

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Impact of refugees on Uganda’s population and political explosion

The job of researchers and reporters is to collect and present facts as background information for policy makers. Right now Uganda is experiencing tremendous demographic and political tremors whose causes need analysis, sorting and appropriate action before the tremors develop into full-blown earthquakes.

It would be naïve and unwise to ignore emerging emotional and controversial debates on the role of refugees and illegal immigrants in Uganda’s politics and demography, hoping time alone will solve them. The case of Cote d’Ivore where natives have had a devastating civil war with foreign-born immigrants for control of the country should serve as a useful lesson for Uganda since Uganda’s economic and political troubles have involved foreigners for about one hundred years.

Since colonial days Uganda has pursued, developed and maintained a liberal labor immigration and refugee policy which has complicated its political economy and demography. The role of refugees, foreign workers and illegal immigrants should not be underestimated in Uganda’s population and political dynamics.

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Why a paradox of Uganda’s economic growth and social decay

The unprecedented diseases of poverty in Uganda led by jiggers and malnutrition (that have become a national scandal) have not only humiliated a proud people but also embarrassed an arrogant NRM government and donors that support it. The government blamed previous ‘bankrupt’ regimes of Obote and Amin for wasting scarce resources including travelling to the United Nations and other destinations in private jets, staying in expensive hotels, hosting expensive functions to compete with superpowers and furnishing their residences with expensive imported furniture. Meanwhile Ugandans suffered all indignities and deprivations including lack of shoes and adequate food resulting in jigger infestation and severe malnutrition. Previous governments were also accused of maintaining a colonial development model that kept Uganda a producer of raw export commodities with low and fluctuating prices against ever rising prices of imported manufactured products. Unfortunately, Museveni and his government that had never run a government set about transforming Uganda’s economy and society in ways that created a paradox of economic growth and medieval social decadence (I wrote a chapter showing similarities in today’s Uganda and medieval Europe in my book titled Uganda’s Development Agenda in the 21st Century published in 2008). Below are a few examples.

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Immigrants and population growth in Buganda

Uganda’s ‘explosive’ population growth has become the single most important development challenge to date. It has been reported in major newspapers in Uganda and at international conferences. Seminars have been conducted on the subject and more are planned. The population topic has attracted people from many disciplines, many of them with insufficient knowledge, experience or data to handle the subject professionally.

The causes of Uganda’s problems – poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation, crime, violence, food insecurity, urban congestion and slums, poor quality education and health care, lack of adequate savings and investments etc – are being blamed largely on Uganda’s high fertility rate. Development partners and experts are increasingly concerned about the future of Uganda if the fertility rate is not checked. One reporter in Observer magazine (Uganda) of August 8, 2010 suggested that “Uganda must start aggressively [using force] promoting and funding family planning services” reminiscent of what happened in India and China. Some readers have supported the suggestion without indicating how it should be done and on what groups.

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The high population growth rate in Uganda

In its report on Uganda dated January 2009, the African Peer Review Forum included a section on population growth (pages 283 through 285). The report noted that “Historically, high fertility rates strongly correlate with poverty and high child mortality rates…). The report further noted that “Recovering from civil war and an HIV prevalence rate that peaked at 30 percent in the 1990s, Uganda now has the third highest population growth rate in the world, estimated at 3.2 percent… The high population growth rate is driven by the country’s high average total fertility rate of 6.9 children, one of the highest in the world”. The report did not mention the influence of migration on Uganda’s population growth. Uganda has a very liberal policy on migration and refugees. This dimension must be factored into Uganda’s demographic equation. The report also did not mention that fertility has begun to decline albeit slowly.

The report covered some causes of the high fertility rate. They include socio-cultural factors like early marriage, low educational levels, especially among females, pervasive poverty, low contraceptive use, general low socio-economic status of women and political statements that encourage large families in part because Uganda has low population density with negative political economy consequences.

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Uganda’s economic growth alone is insufficient for poverty eradication

In May 1987, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government under the leadership of President Museveni signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance. The government opted for the ‘shock therapy’ or extreme version of structural adjustment or Washington Consensus. The agreement called for the abandonment of employment policy in favor of disciplining inflation, promotion of economic growth and export-orientation, privatization of state corporations, retrenchment of public servants, and significant state withdrawal from the economy and virtual abandonment of social policy especially in education and health sectors.

Investments in infrastructure and the economy generally declined considerably. For example in 2008 budget allocation to agriculture, Uganda’s economic mainstay, declined from 4.2 percent in 2007 to 3.8 percent against African Union’s 1993 decision to allocate at least ten percent of national budget to the sector.

The government handed over responsibility for economic management to the invisible hand of market forces and laissez faire (let alone) capitalism as required under the neo-liberal economic ideology. A trickle down mechanism was expected to distribute the benefits of economic growth through employment creation in the private sector. As expected under the Washington Consensus the government focused on law and order by investing heavily in the armed forces, police and intelligence sectors to contain any resistance against the harmful effects of structural adjustment. To mobilize resources for this effort, the government had earlier imposed a 30 percent charge for converting old currency into the new notes against the advice of the IMF.

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Ugandans need to understand the causes of population growth first

Of late there has been a resurgence of writing and debate about Uganda’s population ‘explosion’ or ‘bomb’ that will destroy development efforts because savings are going into feeding unproductive mouths of children instead of investing in productive enterprises. Increasingly we are witnessing people who are not trained in population much less experienced in this complex subject writing and commenting with confidence like they know more than any other Ugandan or for that matter any other expert. Some of these may have had one day or one week’s seminar in population matters and begin to talk with authority.

Population dynamics are very complex in time and space. We have seen the regrettable results of countries that rushed into reducing population growth rapidly by force or couples that did not want children or just one or two. These countries and their governments are now rushing to reverse the trend. Have you heard of “Conception Day” in one of the developed countries where a national holiday has been declared so that the citizens can stay at home and increase their population? Have you heard of a wide range of incentives that are being offered in developed countries so that their populations can have many children? What I am saying is that rushing into curbing population growth can be costly in the long term.

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The impact of poverty and migration on Uganda’s population growth

Because the United Nations Commission on Population and Development has just concluded its 43rd session in New York (April 12-16, 2010) with Uganda delegation in attendance, this is the time to revisit Uganda’s demographic dynamics. According to the United Nations (2009) population estimates, Uganda’s population – using the median variant – grew from 5, 158,000 in 1950 to 33,797,000 in 2010. It is projected to reach 83,847, 000 in 2045 if no major changes take place.

At the national level, population growth is a function of births over deaths, and in-migrants over out-migrants. Therefore to understand Uganda’s population dynamics we need to disaggregate the contribution made by natural increase (births over deaths) and net migration (in-migrants over out-migrants). This disaggregation will help to understand better the causes of each component – why some social classes produce more than others, and why and where migrants come from. This disaggregated information will help authorities and their development partners to make informed and appropriate population policy decisions for each component.

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