Launching Uganda’s development plan raises fundamental questions
The NRM government has decided to launch a development plan in April 2010 which is a fundamental departure from the Washington Consensus or stabilization and structural adjustment program (SAP) that was launched in 1987 and has been praised by the government and donors – state and non-state actors alike – as a “success story” in macroeconomic stability, rapid economic growth, privatization of the economy, diversification of exports, streamlining public service and reducing poverty etc. Uganda became the darling of the west – which occasionally gave more money than the government had requested – and an example of economic development to be emulated by other developing countries wishing to transform their economies and societies.
Until now the government has been publishing statistics showing rosy achievements and projections that promised better days ahead with endorsement by some donors like the International Monetary Fund. The launching of the development plan – the use of the term “new plan” gives an impression that it is replacing an “old plan” which did not exist – at this critical juncture raises the following initial questions that need to be answered.
First, instead of a whole new development ideology embodied in the development plan, why did the government not make substantial changes and retain the current program?