Monthly Archives: May 2008

Foreign travelers, missionaries and explorers to East and
Central Africa including Uganda observed and recorded an abundance of
foodstuffs including crops, livestock, poultry, fish, wild game and wild fruits
and vegetables which provided adequate and balanced diets to individuals most
of the time.

In his report of 1907, Winston Churchill observed
that with her richness of the soil and the abundance of water, Uganda must one day become the great center
of tropical production, and play a most important part in the economic
development of the whole world.

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Since the end of World War Two, Uganda governments including the
colonial administration vowed to industrialize the economy quickly in order to
create jobs for the increasing labor force and transform it from a peasant to a
modern and self-reliant one. The Jinja area in Eastern
Uganda was designated as the industrial hub or the Detroit of East
Africa.

In the first five-year development plan
(1961-1966), the government stressed the expansion of agro-industrial products
and import substitution. In the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) Manifesto of
1980, the party promised to create stable and congenial conditions for the
vigorous growth of business and industry.

In its Ten-Point Program, the National
Resistance Movement [NRM] government pledged to establish import-substitution
industries to eliminate import bills especially in the consumer sub-sector
using local inputs as much as possible. The industrialization process would be
underpinned by research facilities to identify scientific techniques for
processing, preservation and packaging of industrial products. Foreign exchange
would be used to import technology to industrialize Uganda. The construction of basic
industries such as iron and steel, chemical or construction and engineering
would be undertaken, where feasible.

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