THERE are people who do not want to hear that the economic challenge Uganda is facing is actually part and parcel of a global phenomenon. No surprise here; for they might as well deny that the sun does not shine at night.
The reality is that no country in the world had fully recovered from the global economic crisis that hit in 2008. As I write this, the richest economy in the world, the United States has lost its top notch ‘Triple A’ credit rating from Standard and Poor’s in a dramatic reversal.
This, combined with other factors, to be fair, unique to each country and which must be considered on a country-by-country basis, means that the world as a whole has some way to go before economic stability is realised.
Greece, Ireland and Portugal are countries not usually in the news; but they have made the headlines in recent months for all the wrong reasons. And not simple reasons for that matter.
Greece, with a labour force of over five million is the most hardworking country (they work the longest hours) in the European Union and the second in the world—after South Korea. But a huge national debt and erratic economic solutions (coming in the wake of the global economic crisis) sent the economy down the drain, forcing the country to appeal to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU for an urgent bailout.
Portugal, which recently admitted it, can no longer fund itself and cannot cut its costs internally, is also on financial bailout, having asked for intervention from both the IMF and EU. Same goes for Ireland, whose failures in its banking system dragged the economy down.
Spain—until recently— was regarded as another country whose economy was hugely at risk; and yet before then was seen as an economy too big to fail. It is now under observation—to borrow medical language. Now think about the US government —deeply in debt of more than 14 trillion dollars—and has to borrow to meet its debt obligations every month.
But shivers went down every spine around the world a few weeks ago when it seemed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives was determined to prevent authorisation to raise the debt ceiling that would enable the Treasury borrow to finance its debt obligations.
And in a rare show of solidarity, Arabs and Jews marched by the thousands, side by side in Israel to protest the rising cost of living, calling it ‘unreasonable and unjustifiable’ and calling upon Premier Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quit.
The more one considers other problems in the world like the political crises in the Arab world and piracy in the high seas that have forced fuel prices and cost of imports and exports up respectively (the latter because of the increased risk and sheer cost of security on the high seas), the more one appreciates that we are going through rather unique problems as a planet.
The sum total of all this is that economic challenges are by no means unique to Uganda— many other countries are facing exactly the same problems, and some are even faring worse. But it is also important for our people to know that we are not an island and in this era of globalisation, every economy is susceptible to external shocks, which, if they encounter unfavourable internalities, the situation is unduly and inevitably exacerbated.
Like any other country, Uganda remains vulnerable to market distortions occasioned on the global plane. The bigger concern should be how to address them, rather than pretend we are living on another planet, completely insulated and presumably unconcerned with what is going on elsewhere. What must be appreciated is that the Uganda government is doing its best to intervene; nobody is seated. Uganda’s main concern now is that in times like these when externalities are highly unfavourable, the country’s internal dynamics ought to be found solid and buttressed, able to absorb any external shocks.
Food inflation (food prices spiralling out of control) is one of the major causes of the problems we are now facing. This week’s national conference called by President Museveni to address agriculture is just one of the many interventions that the government is making to come up with both short term and long term measures to alleviate Uganda’s problems.
At least 82% of Ugandans are engaged in agriculture; which means that more effort ought to be invested therein. Already a lot has been done to boost agriculture. Take the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture, establishment of the National Agricultural Advisory Services, the Prosperity for All Programme, the SACCOs, and many others. This is in addition to programmes like the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund, the Peace, Reconstruction and Development Programme in northern Uganda and other area-specific programmes all of which have an agricultural component.
This conference will assess the performance of every district in agricultural production, establish where the challenges are and what needs to be done to surmount them. That means that when the next package of global challenges shows up, Uganda should be found more equal to the task.
Source: http://www.newvision.co.ug
The reality is that no country in the world had fully recovered from the global economic crisis that hit in 2008. As I write this, the richest economy in the world, the United States has lost its top notch ‘Triple A’ credit rating from Standard and Poor’s in a dramatic reversal.
This, combined with other factors, to be fair, unique to each country and which must be considered on a country-by-country basis, means that the world as a whole has some way to go before economic stability is realised.
Greece, Ireland and Portugal are countries not usually in the news; but they have made the headlines in recent months for all the wrong reasons. And not simple reasons for that matter.
Greece, with a labour force of over five million is the most hardworking country (they work the longest hours) in the European Union and the second in the world—after South Korea. But a huge national debt and erratic economic solutions (coming in the wake of the global economic crisis) sent the economy down the drain, forcing the country to appeal to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU for an urgent bailout.
Portugal, which recently admitted it, can no longer fund itself and cannot cut its costs internally, is also on financial bailout, having asked for intervention from both the IMF and EU. Same goes for Ireland, whose failures in its banking system dragged the economy down.
Spain—until recently— was regarded as another country whose economy was hugely at risk; and yet before then was seen as an economy too big to fail. It is now under observation—to borrow medical language. Now think about the US government —deeply in debt of more than 14 trillion dollars—and has to borrow to meet its debt obligations every month.
But shivers went down every spine around the world a few weeks ago when it seemed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives was determined to prevent authorisation to raise the debt ceiling that would enable the Treasury borrow to finance its debt obligations.
And in a rare show of solidarity, Arabs and Jews marched by the thousands, side by side in Israel to protest the rising cost of living, calling it ‘unreasonable and unjustifiable’ and calling upon Premier Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quit.
The more one considers other problems in the world like the political crises in the Arab world and piracy in the high seas that have forced fuel prices and cost of imports and exports up respectively (the latter because of the increased risk and sheer cost of security on the high seas), the more one appreciates that we are going through rather unique problems as a planet.
The sum total of all this is that economic challenges are by no means unique to Uganda— many other countries are facing exactly the same problems, and some are even faring worse. But it is also important for our people to know that we are not an island and in this era of globalisation, every economy is susceptible to external shocks, which, if they encounter unfavourable internalities, the situation is unduly and inevitably exacerbated.
Like any other country, Uganda remains vulnerable to market distortions occasioned on the global plane. The bigger concern should be how to address them, rather than pretend we are living on another planet, completely insulated and presumably unconcerned with what is going on elsewhere. What must be appreciated is that the Uganda government is doing its best to intervene; nobody is seated. Uganda’s main concern now is that in times like these when externalities are highly unfavourable, the country’s internal dynamics ought to be found solid and buttressed, able to absorb any external shocks.
Food inflation (food prices spiralling out of control) is one of the major causes of the problems we are now facing. This week’s national conference called by President Museveni to address agriculture is just one of the many interventions that the government is making to come up with both short term and long term measures to alleviate Uganda’s problems.
At least 82% of Ugandans are engaged in agriculture; which means that more effort ought to be invested therein. Already a lot has been done to boost agriculture. Take the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture, establishment of the National Agricultural Advisory Services, the Prosperity for All Programme, the SACCOs, and many others. This is in addition to programmes like the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund, the Peace, Reconstruction and Development Programme in northern Uganda and other area-specific programmes all of which have an agricultural component.
This conference will assess the performance of every district in agricultural production, establish where the challenges are and what needs to be done to surmount them. That means that when the next package of global challenges shows up, Uganda should be found more equal to the task.
Source: http://www.newvision.co.ug
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