Amin Kiggundu
15 May 2008
opinion
Kampala — UGANDA is poor, underdeveloped and cannot feed its people. But what can be done to solve the intractable problems we are facing? Should we hire former presidents of economically-vibrant countries such as Singapore and Malaysia to rule us? Should we all go for kyeyo (odd jobs) abroad? Or should we invite the British to re-colonise us?
President Yoweri Museveni, as well as Okodan Akwap of Kampala International University, have proposed that we emulate the Asian economic tigers such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia by adopting an industry-based development strategy and promoting exports of value-added products.
Similarly, the ethics state minister, Dr. James Nsaba Butoro, in an article titled, "God did not curse Africans", that was published in The New Vision of September 19, 2007, suggested that rather than depend on foreign ideas and external expert knowledge, Africa should adopt locally-designed development programmes.
The view that the promotion of the East African federation would promote exports and elevate Uganda's economic status is debatable. While some of the above development policy proposals are plausible, their local promoters have ignored Uganda's unique and unfavourable location.
Unlike the 'Asian tigers', Uganda is a land-locked country with limited access to the sea, which is the cheapest means of transport.
More importantly, we lack good infrastructure. Unless deliberate efforts are made to address the location-induced challenges such as the excessively high transportation costs, the plan by the Government to expand our industrial base and promote exports of value-added products is likely to hit a brick wall.
The obsession with exports tends to obscure the fact that the domestic economy matters and that this sector is as important as the external economy (export sector).
The Government's interventionist policy has tended to focus on regulating foreign currency markets to promote exports, ignoring other important market-ravaged economic sectors such as public transport. Due to the challenges associated with building a strong export-oriented economy in Uganda, it is important that a new strategy is adopted to expand the domestic economy.
The best development policy for us, therefore, is urbanisation; the transition from a rural-based society to an urban-based one.
An urban-based development policy is important because modern economies are built, organised and managed in cities and not in villages. For example, Bangkok accounts for about 44% of the entire Thailand Gross Domestic Product of $197b. Another benefit of an urban-based development policy is that urban centres serve as domestic markets for industrial and agricultural products.
There are strong links between urban centres, especially the real estate sector, and other economic sectors such as the steel, banking, insurance, brick-making and cement industries, as well as the power and piped water sectors. These links are essential in creating new jobs and providing the badly-needed economic stimulus.
Urbanisation can also help reduce the cost of providing infrastructure. With the construction of well-planned new urban centres, it becomes easy and cheap to provide social ammenities.
We need to restructure our village-dominated population by creating urban centres that will provide markets, jobs and stimulate the domestic economic sectors such as agriculture that are lagging behind.
The writer is the Executive Director of the Centre for Urban Studies and Research
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.
