Washington, DC — Although Congo's ongoing conflict was an important part of discussions Uganda president Yoweri Museveni held with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as the first phase of his 10-day working visit to the United States ended Tuesday, Museveni stayed firmly "on message" in his campaign to project Uganda's trade and investment opportunities and the need for industrialized nations to remove protective barriers.
"Uganda has reached her minimum recovery goals," he told a luncheon hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa CCA, "but our economy is not expanded as we'd like it to be."
Market access enabling Africa to export to EU nations and the United States is a crucial piece of that necessary expansion, said Museveni, adding that it remains, "a struggle". And while the African Growth and Opportunity Act(AGOA), signed into law almost two years ago, has begun to open up the U.S. market, tariffs, agricultural subsidies and other non-tariff barriers remain problems, especially in Europe, a theme he has repeated since his arrival Monday.
"All protectionism must end," he told an audience of several hundred on Monday night at the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, DC. "It distorts trade in agricultural products...sustainable growth in Africa is impaired because of that protectionism."
Earlier on Monday, after a 30-minute meeting with President George Bush at the White House, Museveni called for "passionate trade" with the United States to reinforce a Bush proposal that would put an extra US$10 billion into development assistance by the year 2006. This aid would be made available to countries battling corruption and pursuing economic reform.
Museveni told reporters afterward that he considered it a good idea if the money encourages "not only good governance, but trade....It must be used to back up passionate trade."
Museveni is leading a 50-person trade mission to the United States. The group is seeking U.S. partnerships and investments. It is "the formula for Africa's integration into the 21st century global system," the Ugandan president said.
The mission, made up of businessmen and government officials, is stressing the importance of investment in small and medium-sized businesses. There is an "AGOA advantage" Uganda is anxious to take advantage of, said Abel Rwendeire, Minister of State in Uganda's Ministry of Trade.
Uganda, among a dozen African nations with balanced budgets and strong protections for individual property rights, is widely considered one of Africa's most successful models for poverty reduction and sustainable development. The East African nation has seen a steady economic growth rate of 6.5 percent for the last 16 years and inflation is a low 0.3 percent.
"We have a government that is very pro-private sector, a government that tries to promote business," said Mayur Madhvani, Director of the Madhvani Group. "In the past, government interference with the ownership of property was a very big problem," Museveni told the CCA luncheon audience. No more, he said. The role of government "is only to facilitate and regulate".
HIV/Aids has been an inescapable issue on this trip and during their meeting President Bush praised Museveni for Uganda's success in fighting the pandemic. "We'd like to see other countries look to Museveni as an exemplary leader in the battle against HIV/Aids," said a State Department official.
Museveni was unexpectedly optimistic about Africa's fight against HIV/AIDS on Monday night: "Africa is very resilient," Museveni said. "We've had worse problems in the past and we have overcome them. So we shouldn't be pessimistic because of Aids; we'll overcome this as well."
According to Museveni, Uganda's infection rate has dropped from 30 percent to 6.1 percent in ten years, "through high-profile government solidarity with grassroots entities to raise awareness". He announced a partnership with the drug multinational, Pfizer, to establish a research center on HIV/Aids at Makerere University "and devise strategic responses to the HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa".
HIV/Aids is quite easy to prevent, Museveni said, triggering a ripple of surprise through the audience. Taking off his eyeglasses and setting aside his speech, Museveni elaborated on the theme, saying that the disease spreads through "a few known ways, mainly through unprotected sex, blood transfusions, in some cases - not all - by mother-to-child transmission, and traditional practices in some tribes using unsterile instruments in circumcision." Knowing this, he pointed out, "it is easy to stop transmission."
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Awareness is key to solving the problem, he said, and Uganda's lesson is that leadership is essential to developing awareness. "Wherever Aids is a big problem it is mainly due to leadership. I call on African leaders to rise up to the occasion and save the people."
The Ugandan President has left Washington, DC, for New York where he will participate in the United Nations Special Session on Children. He will return to Washington next week and is tentatively scheduled to participate in a business roundtable with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, and Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He will also continue meetings with key congressional leaders as well as with officials of the WorldBank and Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
