Author: Moses Khisa. PHOTO/FILE
With my esteemed colleague and long-standing co-author, Dr Sabastiano Rwengabo, we just completed a draft chapter for the 2024 Africa Yearbook.
Running nearly 600 pages and a collaboration of a consortia of African and European institutions, the Yearbook is a synthesised but quite comprehensive account of the major socioeconomic and political developments in all of the so-called Sub-Saharan Africa countries, published by Brill, Leiden in The Netherlands.
The wild, indeed weird, tendency to cut off the northern-tier countries of Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia), then refer to the rest of the continent as Sub-Saharan Africa, is utterly annoying.
It is a deep-seated practice in the cannons and traditions of Western academia that has a subtle racist subtext, suggesting the ‘brown’ or ‘non-black’ North Africans are not Africans!
Often, there are slippery attempts to use Arabic culture and the Islamic religion as justifications for why North Africa is not part of Africa, but one runs into inevitable contradictions not least of which is Sudan, historically predominantly Arabised and Islamised yet not always placed in the North African tier.
A cursory inquiry into the deep past of Africa reveals the intricate connections, both culturally and economically, between Nubia and Egypt, Mali-Songhai and Morocco, etc.
The name Africa itself originated in North Africa! Okay, enough digression and exasperation, back to the Yearbook… The Yearbook puts together incisive analyses, and serves as a handy reference for researchers, policymakers, and indeed anyone looking for a quick overview of a specific year for a country or countries.
Saba and I have written the Uganda chapter for the last five years, and each time we do it we think hard and fast about what to cram into 6,000 words.
Ultimately, we identify and highlight about three major political developments, placing them in some context and perspective, then underline changes in headline economic indicators and the overall macroeconomic outlook.
We also capture Uganda’s foreign affairs, especially the role in regional geopolitics and security complexities, and an outline of major social issues including issues of human development, refugees, the environment and contours of social conflict.
Every year, except when there is a hugely disruptive external shock like a pandemic, in the Yearbook we present a largely positive picture of Uganda’s economic and social indicators. The political terrain, though, is a completely different ballgame with hardly much positive to underscore.
Going by official statistics and independent data sources, it is inevitable to credit Uganda with positive economic growth and social progress indicators including improvements in the Human Development Indicators produced by the United National Development Programme (UNDP).
To take but just a couple of indicators. All equal, the average Ugandan born today will live much longer than it was the case 20 ago.
To use the technical jargon, life expectancy at birth has improved significantly from the mid-forties in early 2000s to the upper 60s today.
The percentage of Ugandans who can read and write has also markedly improved although the percentage of Ugandans without formal education has actually gone up over the past 10 years.
The rulers (who I refrain from referring to as leaders) obviously deserve their due credit because prosperity cannot happen without proper leadership.
President Museveni often wallows in self-congratulations and the trumpeting of a supposed excellent job he and his government have pulled off in the last four decades. In addition to citing embellished and sometimes highly exaggerated statistics on the economy, he never tires of pointing to Uganda’s peace and stability. He has a point.
The problem is that much of what we have today across the board is at best good; unfortunately, it is not good enough. To paraphrase the great Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, we are walking when we should run.
Last year, our economy grew at about six percent; that is not good enough! Considering the rapid population growth, now officially estimated at 46 million although it could be over 50 million, Uganda needs not just double-digit GDP growth but also growth in the sectors directly impacting majority of Ugandans.
We have rapid urbanisation without prudent planning. There is massive potential for innovation and investment in small businesses that can employ the many street young people, but there is no systematic, long-term and deliberate strategy of financing start-ups.
All said, from where I stand as a student of politics, and with the hindsight of history, even if we had everything cruising on the path of progress but remain under the current broken and uncertain political system, the outlook for the future would be bleak. To which I shall turn next.
Moses Khisa
Majority Report
