Uganda, 2008

Allow me at the outset, Sir,

to congratulate you on your election to the presidency

of the General Assembly. Uganda is convinced that,

with your experience and well-known diplomatic

skills, we shall have a successful session. I wish today

to pay tribute to your predecessor, His Excellency

Srgjan Kerim, for the excellent manner in which he

presided over the sixty-second session. I would also

like to pay tribute to the Secretary-General for his

leadership and efforts to reform our Organization.

The founding fathers of the United Nations had a

dream of creating an organization whose purpose,

among others, was “to achieve international

cooperation in solving international problems of an

economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character”.

Today the world is facing a multitude of problems,

many of which the United Nations was meant to

address.

It is encouraging that the theme chosen for this

session is the impact of the global food crisis on

poverty and hunger in the world as well as the need to

democratize the United Nations. The view of some of

us in Uganda is that the so-called food crisis is actually

good for equatorial Africa. It is certainly good for

Uganda’s farmers. Over the years, we have been

growing a lot of food: maize, bananas, Irish potatoes,

sweet potatoes, cassava, rice and wheat; and producing

animal products such as milk and beef. The problem

has always been the market for this food.

That was an account of two problems: first,

protectionism in the United States, the European

Union, Japan, China, et cetera; and secondly, the lack

of factories to process that food so that it could reach

distant markets. Apart from these two, there are other

factors in some African countries, including poor

traffic infrastructure, lack of electricity, lack of seeds,

et cetera. These, however, do not apply to Uganda. In

the case of Uganda, the problem has been the lack of

markets and low processing capacity, in other words,

low value addition. The rest we have, or we can have

easily.

The high food and commodity prices have arisen

on account of the hundreds of millions of Chinese and

Indians that have entered the opulent middle class in

the last 20 years. That means they need better food,

better houses that require cement and steel bars, and

better means of locomotion such as cars. That is why

food and commodity prices have gone up. It is for the

same reason that petroleum prices have gone up: if

only 200 people were driving cars previously, the

number has now risen to 400. That means more

demand for petroleum. Following the continuously

21 08-51606

rising petroleum prices, some Western countries have

started talking of biofuels — using plants to produce

diesel.

Uganda, however, welcomes all of this. It is an

opportunity, as far as we are concerned. It is not a

bottleneck. In fact, farmers in Uganda are already

reaping high. That is why our economy grew by 9 per

cent last year. Once we solve the problem of energy,

our economy will grow in double digits.

It is good that the United States of America, the

European Union, India, Japan and China have opened

their markets to African products, tariff-free, quota-

free. However, there is still the issue of subsidies. They

should be removed. In Uganda, we farm without

subsidies. Why should not the farmers in those

countries with better infrastructure, lower interest

rates, abundant electricity, et cetera, do the same? Why

do they need protection? Protectionism interferes with

those countries that can produce food easily, such as

Uganda. That is not correct.

We have been producing too much milk without

having the capacity to process it. Recently, an Indian-

owned company installed a high-tech integrated milk-

processing plant and began to process powdered milk,

producing a whole range of finished milk products:

pasteurized milk, ultra-heat-treated (long-life) milk,

yoghurt, butter, ghee, et cetera. Those milk products

are now being exported to all parts of the world.

Another example has been bananas. Uganda

produces 10 million metric tons of bananas per annum.

These are high-quality bananas — called enyam wonyo

in one of our local dialects — which contain rare

ingredients. They are quite different from the bananas

known in other parts of the world. Forty per cent of

those bananas have been rotting in gardens and

marketplaces. Our scientists, funded by our

Government, are now converting them into processed

foods such as flour, bread, snacks, et cetera.

High fuel prices are a real problem for countries

that do not have petroleum. Maximizing the use of

other forms of energy — including hydropower;

geothermal power, which is used effectively in

countries such as Iceland; solar power; wind power;

and biofuels — is part of the answer for such countries.

All that, however, depends on the development of

human resources through education. An educated

population has more capacity to look for answers than

an uneducated population.

As far as Uganda is concerned, in addition to lazy

individuals, the only groups that are adversely affected

by high food prices are salary earners in towns. Unlike

farmers, they cannot benefit from higher food prices;

yet they must buy food. Fortunately, however, all such

families in Uganda have a dual capacity: in addition to

being salary earners, they or their relatives own land in

rural areas. They can therefore subsidize themselves by

growing food using that land. Africa and other regions

with agriculture-based economies should rise up,

utilize their full potential and take advantage of high

food prices.

Regarding the statement that I have heard

repeated so many times since the opening of the

present session of the General Assembly — that no

African country can achieve the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 — I would like

to make two positions clear. First, the statement

confirms what I said yesterday at the high-level

meeting on Africa’s development needs. Discussing

sustainable development without discussing

socio-economic transformation is not correct. We have

repeatedly pointed that out. I have often used the

example of pregnancy: one cannot talk endlessly about

“sustainable pregnancy”. Yes, pregnancy should be

sustainable until it transitions into a baby. Therefore, as

Europe did, and as other societies in Asia have recently

done, Africa must metamorphose socially,

economically and technologically from a

pre-industrial, sometimes feudal, society into a middle-

class and skilled-working-class society, period.

Achievement of all the MDGs would be the

consequence of such a metamorphosis.

One cannot maintain a pre-industrial society and

somehow achieve the MDGs. An industrial society is

what Uganda has been working towards over the past

20 years. Africa must industrialize, develop a modern

services sector and commercialize agriculture. That

means that emphasis must be placed on market access.

It means that we should not only gain access to the

major markets of the world, but also rationalize our

own African markets through regional and continental

integration. It also means that, in order to lower the

costs of doing business in Africa, we should deal with

energy; transport, especially by rail; and primary and

higher-level education. Achievement of the MDGs

would be a consequence of these developments, rather

than a precursor or a phenomenon extraneous to them.

08-51606 22

Mr. Yáñez-Barnuevo (Spain), Vice-President, took

the Chair.

The second position that I would like to point out

regarding the MDGs is that Uganda is on course to

meet all of them except those related to maternal health

and child mortality. I see no reason why those Goals

should not be achieved. With the exception of

combating HIV/AIDS — which is behaviour-related —

I am sure that all the others are achievable if we in

Uganda do enough political-led sensitization and

investment.

I do not associate myself with those who are

pessimistic about Africa or with those who put the cart

before the horse. Why, for instance, were

industrialization and value addition not made one of

the MDGs? The export of raw materials is one of the

cardinal sins that cause Africa to contribute only a

2 per cent share of world trade. If value were added to

those raw materials, Africa’s share of world trade

would rise, even today. Africa is exporting many

things, but they are in the form of raw materials; that is

why their value is 2 per cent. If value were added to

those raw materials, their value would rise.

Moreover, that would create jobs for Africans and

therefore contribute structurally to poverty eradication.

How are we supposed to eradicate poverty without

creating jobs, other than by using witchcraft? We have

repeatedly pointed out these issues in several forums,

to no avail. It is Africans themselves who can and

should resolve them.