The UK is proud of Uganda’s progress
The article in Uganda’s New Vision dated March 10, 2010 written by Baroness Kinnock, UK’s Minister of State for Africa is a balanced one. It has touched on areas where progress has been made and where more needs to be done. I wish to highlight a few areas – not for criticism – but to inform the public.
The historic economic relationship between the UK and Uganda has been marked by inequality in the sense that UK determined that Uganda would produce raw materials (cotton, coffee, tea and tobacco) in exchange for manufactured products. Winston Churchill and Fredrick Lugard decided that Uganda’s comparative advantage was in agricultural raw materials although at that time Uganda had a vibrant manufacturing sector and was not producing any of the export raw materials just mentioned above.