Since Uganda became a nation in 1894, it has gone through four major development phases:
- The colonial phase from 1894 to October 8, 1962
- The UPC I phase from October 9 1962 to 1970
- The chaotic phase from 1971 to 1985
- The promising phase turned disastrous from 1986 to 2010
The colonial period
The colonial phase was marked by rearranging pre-colonial land and labor relations away from production for domestic consumption and trading of agricultural and manufactured products within eastern and central Africa markets to the production of commodity exports to Britain in exchange for manufactured products. The best lands and male labor were diverted into producing export crops of cotton, coffee, tea and tobacco. Increasing the production and consumption of maize, cassava and plantains at the expense of more nutritious millet and sorghum led to under-nutrition and related illnesses. Heavy taxation of peasants reduced disposable incomes to cover basic needs of health and education and housing etc.
On independence eve in 1962, the then Secretary General of Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) issued a statement on Uganda’s economic and social progress. “We have inherited from the departing colonialism an impoverished suffering African mass, predominantly dependent on traditional agriculture, with very low living conditions, with less than 20% of their children going to school, with inadequate medical facilities, controlling only 5% of trade, commerce and industry of the country, with a very high mortality rate and a host of other social monsters of mankind. These constitute our basic problems to which we must provide an answer”(A. M. Kirunda-Kivejinja 1995).
UPC I period
From 1962 to 1970 the UPC government under the leadership of President Obote designed and implemented an economic and social program that, with development partners’ support, produced admirable results.
In its 1993 report on Trends in Developing Economies, the World Bank summarized Uganda’s success story as follows: “GDP growth was about 6 percent a year from 1963 to 1970, and relative price stability was maintained. At independence in 1962 Uganda had one of the most vigorous and promising economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the years following independence amply demonstrated its economic potential. Uganda’s social indicators were comparable to, if not better than, most countries in Africa. The country’s health service had developed into one of Africa’s best. Uganda pioneered many low-cost health and nutrition programs. There was a highly organized network of vaccination centers and immunization programs reached 70 percent of the population. Although school enrolment was still low, Uganda’s education system had developed a reputation for very high quality” (World Bank 1993).
The economic and social turmoil period
This period ran from 1971 to 1985. The NRM government reported at the 1989 seminar of parliamentarians and other invited participants that “Overall GDP had fallen between 1969 and 1985 by a factor of about 16% while the population had grown from a figure of 9.7 million to about 16 million. Thus income per capita had fallen by a factor of nearly 50% in real terms. This was not a mere statistical average [and] one could see evidence of individual poverty all over the country in the rural areas. …
“And so what were the challenges facing the National Resistance Movement? – resettle people, bring about law and order, revive production and restructure the economy” (Papers presented at the Uganda Seminar on the economy since 1986, 1990).
A close examination of how the UPC I and NRM governments analyzed the challenges gives an idea about the policies, strategies and programs that were designed and implemented by UPC I and NRM. By and large UPC I focused on economic and social challenges whereas NRM focused on security, law and order and economic challenges. The UPC I succeeded in realizing a healthy economic growth rate averaging 6 percent with low inflation and impressive improvements in health, education and nutrition as reported by the World Bank in 1993.
On the other hand, the NRM government focused on building intelligence, police and defense forces to improve and maintain security, restore law and order and promote economic growth and per capita incomes.
Consequently after more than twenty years in power the NRM government has led Uganda in a backward direction in political, environmental, economic and social areas. Politically, NRM has become dictatorial even threatening to cut off heads of those that dissent.
Ecologically FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) has warned that if the current rate of environmental degradation is not halted and reversed Uganda will become a desert within 100 years which is a very short time.
Economically growth rates have plummeted from 10 percent in mid-1990s to around 4 percent in 2009 far below the 7 or 8 percent required as minimum to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Income distribution has tilted in favor of a few Uganda families and foreigners, leaving the majority especially those in rural areas to wallow in poverty and its offshoots of disease, ignorance, vulnerability and voicelessness.
Socially, NRM’s performance has been not only disastrous but retrogressive as well. Over 30 percent of Ugandans go to bed hungry in a country that exports huge amounts of food to neighboring countries and beyond including to World Food Program (WFP), some 40 percent of Ugandans have developed neurological disabilities due to stress and poor diet, some 40 percent of under-five children are under-nourished, 12 percent of infants are born underweight because their mothers are under-nourished and infant mortality rate, a reliable indicator of the nation’s health, has increased from 75 to 78 per 1000 live births. Uganda tops the world in alcohol consumption. Uganda has become a country where some husbands allow their wives to become sex workers to be able to put food on the table.
The recently launched five-year development plan will not be implemented because there is no political will on NRM’s part. It was launched for political purposes to hoodwink Ugandans and return NRM and President Museveni to power in the 2011 elections. Lack of interest in the plan came through in the president’s foreword which repeated structural adjustment key elements and when President Museveni said that there are plenty of jobs in the army and police force and that Ugandans have chosen not to work, implying that the high unemployment in the country is of a voluntary nature.
NRM has lost direction and popularity and that is why it has resorted to force (including canning which was one of the characteristics of slavery) to stay in power.
Ugandans are anxiously waiting for the reaction of donors that have sustained the NRM government in power for over twenty years.