Ambrose Bugaari
17 February 2008
opinion
Kampala — The New Vision, February 5, published a story titled: "Germany to open up market". President Horst Kohler agreed with President Yoweri Museveni that trade is better than aid. Despite Uganda having been a beneficiary of aid for the last 22 years, poverty still haunts us.
Stringent conditions are attached to aid that have little relevance to us. Structural adjustment policies promoted by World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) required Uganda to concentrate on privatisation and debt servicing at the expense of providing social amenities to her citizens. This has resulted in increased poverty
Foreign aid has more benefits for donors than recipients. In a June 2005 report by Action Aid, two-thirds of donor money goes back to donor countries and is not available for poverty reduction in developing countries. In addition to a large portion of funds going to foreign consultants, the report states that donor governments often require that money be spent in certain ways.
According to the 2006 EURODAD report, Uganda faced 197 conditions attached to its fifth Poverty Reduction Support Credit issued in 2005. Furthermore, the geo-political objectives of donors take precedence over poverty reduction. William Easterly (2005) in an article titled: "Money is not a cure for Africa's poor", states that while the cold war ended, other trends in geo-politics, like the "war on terror", mean that rich countries will always need allies among poorer nations.
Due to the IMF concerns about safeguarding macro-economic stability in Uganda, the Government has been constrained from spending the bulk of aid received in recent years. A IMF 2007 report states that governments in low-income countries, bound by an IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, spent only 28% of aid received during 1999-2005.
Corruption in Uganda has worsened the problem of the aid game. Therefore, rather than depend on aid, we should increase productivity and competitiveness of our products, agro-processing, enlarge markets, have zero tolerance to corruption, good governance and implement poverty eradication frameworks.
The writer is a specialist in enterprise development
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
