Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa

Adaptation and distress in the urban economy: A study of Kampala households

Abstract Though Uganda underwent fairly rapid economic growth after independence in 1962, the civil strife and external shocks of the 1970s and 1980s led to rapid decline. The impacts on Kampala households reflect, in many ways, those on the rest of the country and have led to: extensive diversification of incomes, mainly to reduce the risks perceived in todays unstable environment; a decrease in the share of wages in total incomes, compensated by allowances of various types; increased engagement in informal sector activities and even farming in the urban sector. The main tasks of economic management are twofold: to stabilize wage employment and to ameliorate the social misery caused by the decline. The limited resource base and the continued external disturbances make the prospects for sustained recovery precarious.

Africa and the donor community: from conditionality to partnership

The last decade has seen an increasing disillusionment with aid to Africa. Whilst some have laid the blame for this failure at the door of African governments and their lack of commitment, there is growing recognition that the multiple conditionalities imposed by donors have been part of the problem. The concept of partnership propounded in the White Paper, and in a new Swedish policy document, potentially offers a vision of aid relationships on a more equal footing, with scope for genuine recipient participation. But potential pitfalls lay ahead: problems for recipients in managing multiple partnerships, for donors in finding governments with sufficient capacity and commitment to the shared goals of democracy and poverty eradication to act as genuine partners, and to manage an equal partnership based on the inherently one-sided process of aid budgeting. Time and effort are also required to bring the whole international community into line with the notion of partnership as the basis for aid relations.

External shocks and adjustment in a mineral dependent economy: A short-run model for Zambia

Abstract Standard Dutch Disease analyses would suggest that mineral price declines reverse the effects of mineral booms, in particular that the real depreciation caused by the fall in export prices helps revive the traded sectors, notably manufacturing. Zambias experience, however, shows that the sectoral impacts of external shocks are much more complex. To investigate the tradeoffs inherent in economic adjustment policies, including those currently advocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) we use a multisector general equilibrium model. The study shows that policies, even those directed at a specific sector, have indirect but not necessarily benign effects on the rest of the country.

On Structural Adjustment in Uganda

ABSTRACT Uganda is a good example of the challenges facing a poor country attempting to achieve a measure of external and internal balance. The adjustment agenda has been a complex of strategies that have ranged from the revamping of the incentive structure to the reconstitution of the public service. Due to the depth of the earlier crisis and the severity of the continued external disturbances, results from the adjustment effort have been relatively meagre.

Bigsten Arne and Kayizzi-Mugerwa Steve. Crisis, Adjustment and Growth in Uganda: A Study in Adaptation in an African Economy . New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. xx + 245 pp. Map. Figures. Tables. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index.

List of Acronyms - Map of Uganda - Preface - Introduction - The Years of Optimism (1960-71) - Crisis and Decline (1972-80) - Reform without Stability: Obote II to the NRM (1981-86) - Fully-fledged Liberalisation (1987-) - Income, Poverty and Social Services - Looking Ahead - Concluding Remarks - Appendix A: Urban Adaptation: a Study of Kampala Households - Appendix B: Rural Adaptation: Evidence from Masaka District - References - Index

79.95. Cloth.

Uganda’s capital base and infrastructure, which had expanded rapidly in the 1960s, began to deteriorate with Amin’s assumption of power in 1971, along with the professionalism which had once characterised the civil service. Unfortunately, Amin’s rule of 1971–79 coincided with several severe international economic disturbances: the oil shock of 1973/74, the international recession which followed, and fluctuations in the terms of trade for commodity exporters.1

Crisis and Decline (1972–80)

The leadership vacuum left by the rapid collapse of Amin’s military government in early 1979 increased the level of insecurity, weakening attempts at economic reform by the regimes that followed. There were three governments in less than two years: the Lule government was in office for only about 70 days (April to June, 1979), followed by Binaisa who ruled for close to a year, and the Military Commission which ushered in the elections of 1980. The war and the failure to contain corruption resulted in political and economic chaos. Power continued to be seen as a means to private enrichment (Tindigarukayo, 1988). The period from April 1979 to December 1980 demonstrated the futility of undertaking economic reform in a political vacuum.

Reform Without Stability: Obote II to the NRM (1981–86)

Officiating at the opening of Parliament in April 1987, Museveni spent some time reviewing the achievements of the NRM during its fourteen months in power. After a detailed account of the successes, the President posed the following rhetorical question (Uganda, 1987: 7): ‘If there has been some success, why then is the cost of living very high?’. He blamed the problem on corruption and the ‘lack of capable and devoted cadres’. A further answer, which underlay his address a month later during presentation of the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), was the general lack of incentives in the Ugandan economy. The ERP marked a break from earlier vacillation, setting forward a more clear-cut strategy for economic recovery. While the focus was on economic stabilisation, policies ranged from restructuring of the parastatals to civil-service reform. Their main purpose was to create incentives that would boost individual initiative, encourage institutional rehabilitation, and improve the efficiency of government.

Fully-Fledged Liberalisation (1987–)

In Uganda, there has been a tendency in recent years to look back at the 1960s as something of a ‘golden age’, when the economy, especially the modern sector, saw unprecedented expansion. At the time, it was hoped that this would generate employment for the youthful and increasingly better-educated labour force and also — in a bid to redress the colonial legacy — help to create a viable basis for a more equitable distribution of national resources (Uganda, 1966a). In the countryside, peasants were becoming more involved in cash-crop production. This was encouraged partly because it was believed that increased rural demand for modern-sector goods, made possible by rising rural cash incomes, was crucial for the well-being of the small but expanding import-substituting manufacturing sector. Industrialisation was itself thought to be a key element of development policy. Social, administrative and educational services were expanding rapidly along with the rest of the public sector (Uganda, 1965a). The policy of Ugandanisation led to rapid advancement for many individuals and groups in both the civil service and the parastatals. The administrative strata in government and industry enjoyed a high standard of living.

The Years of Optimism (1960–71)

In Uganda, the government’s involvement in the provision of social services has been fairly extensive. In the 1960s, education and primary health care were given considerable emphasis; they were seen as instruments that would help reduce poverty, ignorance and disease in the countryside, thereby giving a boost to overall economic development. Thus, partly with donor support, a rapid expansion of health and education services took place in the first years of independence, accompanied by broad private sector initiatives in both areas. However, high population growth, and the crises of the 1970s and after began to reduce the supply and quality of social services (Heyneman, 1979); increasing the difficulties of welfare improvement. The overriding problem has been the inability of the central and local governments to provide adequate resources. The institutions set up for training, regulation and research fell into disrepair while financial constraints reduced the levels of remuneration in the service sector to intolerable levels.