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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.

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The role of Uganda’s under-five children in human capital formation

In his end of 2009 address, President Museveni included the important subject of human development. To achieve it he stressed universal primary and secondary education. He also underlined the critical role of a sound health system, adequate provision of safe water and proper sanitation facilities. However, he left out two important aspects – under-five children and food security. Without these two, no country can achieve satisfactory human capital development.

It is surprising that the president left out food security because it was an area that received his strong support at the beginning of his presidency. He lamented that food insecurity in Uganda had been caused by neglecting the production of nutritious food stuffs (finger-millet, sorghum, soya beans etc) in favor of cash crops (coffee, cotton, tea and tobacco) needed by consumers in foreign countries. He stressed, at home and abroad, the need to re-orient Uganda’s economy so that food production for domestic consumption is balanced with production for export markets.

It has long been recognized that human development begins with the health and especially the nutritional status of the mother at the time she conceives. A mother who is under-nourished will likely produce under-weight children with permanent disabilities including physical and mental retardation. Therefore human capital development should begin with adequate nutrition of the mother to produce a healthy and normal child.

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Understanding slavery & slave trade

Slavery is an institution or a practice in which people own other people directly or indirectly. Ownership has an element of belonging. You belong to me and therefore I own you because, for example, I protect you or, in some cases, because I employ you. In return, the owned person submits to or accepts to be dominated by the owner and works hard as a slave.

A slave is a helpless victim to or of some dominating influence. A slave is also a contemptible person. Contempt is an act or mental attitude of despising another person and a contemptible person is an individual who deserves to be despised. To despise means to regard some one as inferior or worthless.

When someone from one ethnic group brags that he is worth 1000 people from another ethnic group, he is saying that members of the latter ethnic group are inferior or worthless. The inferior people become helpless victims in the process – hence slaves.

Slavery is an old institution with roots in pre-historic times (before writing was invented). Slavery reached its peak in Greece and the Roman Empire and declined during the middle Ages. The colonization of the New World (North and South America) resulted in a resurgence of slavery and slave trade.

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Following external advice blindly devastating Uganda’s image

On December 2 and 3, 2009, Rachel Maddow of television Channel 29 (MSNBC, USA) reported the background to the anti-homosexuality bill currently being debated in Uganda parliament and religious, legislative and executive branch individuals behind the bill. The photographs of four individuals from Uganda on the show were particularly disturbing to say the least. Those wishing to learn more can obtain the report at [email protected]. More information can also be obtained from The Family (2008) by Jeff Sharlet.

Public opinion about Uganda – which has been eroding very rapidly because of the invasion and looting of DRC resources, rampant corruption and economic mismanagement, killing unarmed rioters in the nation’s capital and demonstrations in USA against the president during his visit there in September 2009 – has plummeted following the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC.

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Uganda being wrongly advised

When you press Uganda policy makers privately and anonymously they admit the country is receiving wrong advice most of the time from external advisers and their Uganda surrogates. When you press further for an explanation, they tell you the piper calls the tune, implying that the donors have resources which Uganda does not have.

And when you ask whether in return for loans and grants Uganda has lost control and ownership of the economy, most replies are positive.

When the NRM government came to power in 1986, it resisted – for 18 months – IMF and World Bank advice to abandon the mixed economy model in favor of the neo-liberal one based on market forces and private sector as engines of growth. Finally the message came hone loud and clear when Linda Chalker, former minister in Thatcher’s government advised the government and possibly the president himself that most major creditors believe that “the solution to Uganda’s problems depended on reaching an agreement with the IMF” (New African 1987-88) and its harsh conditions.

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