Uganda’s population challenges enter the development discourse when there are serious economic and social problems. Amin condemned population growth when the economy turned sour and ordered doctors to deal with it through contraception which he had banned a few years earlier. Currently (in 2010) Uganda’s population ‘explosion’ is again at the center of the development debate, invoking Malthus’ idea of population racing ahead of food production.
Malthus stated that population was growing geometrically (1,2,4,8,16 etc) while food production was growing arithmetically (1,2,3,4,5 etc), implying that all the food produced would be consumed in the same country. He concluded that if not checked, the least able to procure food would starve to death. Those able would survive – hence the survival of the fittest concept developed by Charles Darwin based on Malthus’ essay. The essay was written for Europe and North America. He used statistics compiled by Benjamin Franklin whose figures had included migration into America where it has had no application. During the 18th century agricultural productivity had doubled which Malthus ignored when he published his essay on population in 1798. One of the principle recommendations to check population growth was delayed marriage.
Applying Malthus’s theory to Uganda’s population situation creates difficulties. First, since the 1920s Uganda has attracted many more migrants for economic and political reasons than it has sent out. Uganda therefore needs to disaggregate population data to separate population due to natural increase (births over deaths by Ugandans) from population growth caused by migrations and children they produce while in Uganda as refugees or temporary workers. At the time of independence in 1962 40 percent of Buganda’s population consisted of Banyarwanda from Burundi and Rwanda. If you add on immigrants from other countries you may find that in 1962 Baganda constituted less than 50 percent. Since independence many more migrants have entered Uganda increasing population growth to an annual rate of about 3 percent.
Second, as noted above Malthus assumed that the food produced would be consumed in the same country. Since its colonization in 1894 Uganda has exported large quantities of food. In fact since the 1990s to meet Washington Consensus requirement of increasing and diversifying exports Uganda has increasingly exported food that was previously produced for domestic consumption causing artificial shortages, hunger, malnutrition and deaths directly or indirectly.
Third, in Uganda delayed marriage has not taken place as Malthus recommended leading to a high fertility rate. The easiest and least controversial way to delay marriage is to keep girls in school longer. This would require state intervention to subsidize or give free education to girls and provide school lunches. It has been demonstrated from developed and developing countries that school lunches reduce drop out and improve performance especially of girls. The Uganda government has not given school lunches the priority they deserve.
Thus the application to Uganda of Malthus ideas at face value creates problems. These problems may explain in part why the government has been reluctant to address Uganda’s population growth challenge head on.