Uganda, 2013

In the year 2000, we met

here and agreed on the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) for 2015. They are: Goal 1, the eradication of

extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2, achieving universal

primary education; Goal 3, promoting gender equality

and the empowerment of women; Goal 4, reducing child

mortality; Goal 5, improving maternal health; Goal 6,

combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases;

Goal 7, ensuring environmental sustainability; and Goal

8, developing a global partnership for development. As

we can see, they cannot be sustainably achieved unless

we achieve socioeconomic transformation. That means

building a new society comprised of the middle class

and the skilled working class out of the pre-capitalist

societies that characterize underdeveloped countries.

Our old society of traditional Africa had and has

to undergo socioeconomic metamorphosis, just like

the insects do, taking on new forms of life — egg,

caterpillar, pupa, adult butterfly or other insect, and so

on — of the same organism. That means fewer people in

agriculture than in industry and services, more people

in urban centres than in rural areas, no illiteracy, and

modern agriculture rather than subsistence traditional

agriculture or uneconomic colonial cash crops that

bring in little for the affected families. I hope that no

one had imagined that we could sustainably attain the

MDGs while maintaining a backward economy.

We in Uganda discovered the following bottlenecks

to socioeconomic transformation.

The first is ideological disorientation. The

second is a weak State — no army and a weak police,

judiciary and civil service. The third is inadequate

infrastructure, including inadequate electricity, lack of

roads, lack of a railway system, lack of information and

communications technology infrastructure, and so on.

All of this means high costs for doing business in a

given country. That scares away business, and without

business there can be no employment, no production of

goods and services and no expansion of the tax base. It

is a vicious circle.

The fourth bottleneck relates to human resources

that are undeveloped on account of lack of education

and poor health. An illiterate and unhealthy population

cannot be the agent of socioeconomic transformation.

The fifth is the issue of small internal markets resulting

from the colonial balkanization of Africa. Those had

to be worked on through regional market integration.

One cannot sustainably produce if sufficient numbers

of people do not buy one’s goods.

Sixth, a lack of industrialization and a failure to

modernize services meant that we continued to export

raw materials at 10 per cent or less of the final value of

the final product, thereby losing money and jobs to the

outside world. The lack of modern services meant that

we could not attract tourists and had to import services

from outside in the form of professional and medical

services, inter alia, in addition to jobs not being created.

Seventh, the failure to modernize agriculture

inhibits the earning capacity of the affected portions of

the population and the country, stunts job creation and

affects food security.

Eighth, the additional mistake was made of

interfering with the private sector, influenced by

an incorrect analysis of the national interest. Was

the private sector causing the national economy to

haemorrhage by repatriating dividends, or was it

creating an infusion of fresh money and knowledge and

expanding the size of the economy? Fortunately, that

mistake has been corrected in Uganda and in much of

Africa.

Those are the bottlenecks that directly affected the

rate of socioeconomic transformation. I do not wish to

go into the political bottlenecks here.

In Uganda, therefore, we were clear about all of

those from the very beginning. It was not possible to

talk of the MDGs sustainably without talking about

those strategic bottlenecks. You could not sustainably

base yourself on donor support to achieve the MDGs.

In spite of the fact that a number of mistakes were

made by some of our actors, Uganda will have achieved

the following MDGs by 2015.

First, eradicate extreme poverty and

hunger — already achieved; second, achieve universal

primary education — already achieved; third, promote

gender equality — already achieved; fourth, reduce

child mortality — already achieved; fifth, improve

maternal health — achieving this one has been slow

to be achieved because of mistakes on our side; sixth,

combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases — we are

on track to achieve this, except as concerns new AIDS

infections, which have increased slightly; seventh,

ensure environmental sustainability by increasing the

electrification of the economy, so as to stop the cutting

of forests for firewood and for primitive agriculture

by modernizing agriculture and shifting a greater

portion of the population towards industry, away from

agriculture.

We have been working on Goal 8, developing a

global partnership for development, first and foremost

by working for economic and political integration in

Africa and for market access to the rest of the world on

the basis of mutual advantage. The process of market

integration in Africa has already started in the form

of the East African Community, the Common Market

for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African

Development Community, the Economic Community

of West African States and the Economic Community

of Central African States.

As part of the global partnership, we should be

very careful not to lose the easing in global tensions

that came with the end of the Cold War. In the Book of

Matthew, Jesus says :

“ By their their fruit you will recognize them.

Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs

from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears

good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good

tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot

bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good

fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus,

by their fruit you will recognize them.” (The Holy

Bible, Matthew 7:16-20)

A good system will prove its superiority by

example. The Book of Matthew also states:

“In the same way, let your light shine before

others, that they may see your good deeds and

glorify your Father in heaven.” (ibid., Matthew 5:16)

We do not have to create new global tensions in

order to deal with criminals. Where there is a need for

international action, regional and global consensus

should be sought so that we unite the many to defeat

the few and isolate the enemy to the maximum, as the

late Chairman Mao Zedong used to say. Where there is

a need to fight for freedom, oppressed people can fight

for themselves. They do not have to be sponsored by

external forces. Those who seek external sponsorship

as their primary aim are suspect, to say the least.

Still on the issue of global partnership, I cannot

fail to stress our anger vis-à-vis actors who are

beginning to make it a habit to ignore African Union

positions on African matters. One of our slogans in the

decolonization struggle was “Africa for the Africans”.

Some people seem to think that that was an empty

slogan. They are wrong. Although the patriotic forces

have been taken by surprise by this renewed arrogance

by the old mistake-makers, they will react appropriately

to protect Africa from hegemony.

The latest manifestation of arrogance is from the

International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the

elected leaders of Kenya. Many African countries

supported the establishment of the Court because we

abhor impunity. However, in a shallow, biased way,

the ICC has continued to mishandle complex African

issues. That is not acceptable. The ICC should stop. Our

advice to it is from very capable actors who know what

they are doing and who know what they are saying.

Kenya is recovering. Let it recover. We know the origin

of the mistakes of the past. The ICC way is not the right

one for handling those mistakes.

In our struggle for socioeconomic transformation,

our biggest problem has been funding. The small

modern colonial economy of Uganda was destroyed

by Idi Amin. Initially, as we struggled for minimal

economic recovery, we had to depend on external

funding. Although useful, that funding was limited,

slow in coming, not always focused, and erratic.

Although our economy succeeded in achieving an

average annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent per annum

over the past 20 years, we could have achieved much

higher rates of growth, especially if we had had reliable

funding for infrastructure,

Now that we have a little bit of our own money,

we are able to implement infrastructure projects much

faster. Even without oil and gas, we were able to move

much faster in terms of infrastructure development by

relying on ourselves. Of course, additional external

funding, if it is focused, sizeable and on time, can be

very useful. Without a doubt, Uganda and much of

Africa are moving forward robustly. With the resources

from the oil and gas we discovered a few years ago,

we will be able to fund all our infrastructure needs.

The future is bright and our forward movement is

irreversible.