Later this month, President Yoweri Museveni shall launch the Parish Development Model (PDM) – unveiling the latest phase in the struggle to execute a qualitative leap from backwardness to modernity. More specifically, the PDM is aimed at paving the way for 39% of our population to transition from subsistence to formal economy. The PDM Community Mobilization and Mindset Pillar headed by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, has already embarked on the necessary sensitization and training of all stakeholders.
Our concern today though, is to map out what we consider vital elements of the philosophical, political and economic context in which the PDM is being unveiled. It is very important for all the echelons of the political and technical leadership of the country – as well as the intelligentsia and the population at large – to reflect on that context as we receive the PDM. Our task today is fairly simple – because we shall lean very heavily on the writings of President Yoweri Museveni and decisions of the Central Executive Committee of the National Resistance Movement to enable us to make our points.
We shall start with the President’s Keynote Address on the Economy, delivered to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) at Igongo, Mbarara – on 23rd December 2018.
The President’s paper commenced with this admonition: “A serious, revolutionary discussion about the economy of Uganda or, indeed, much of Africa, should include the following questions: What was the economy of Uganda like in 1900, at the dawn of colonialism; What was the economy of Uganda like in 1962, at the sunset of colonialism; How and what was the magnitude of the collapse of the Ugandan economy between 1971 and 1986 (Idi Amin, Obote II, Okello); What, therefore, was the economy of Uganda like in 1986; What is the Ugandan economy like today and why; What should the Ugandan economy be like when our country is a fully modern economy?”
In his discussion, the President introduces to his listeners and readers, the concept/element of “Enclave Economy”. Appreciating this, helps in part in understanding why the journey of transforming our country first and foremost reflects a structural continuum of more than 600 years, why it has of necessity been protracted and complex, and what needs to be done looking to the future.
“When the British and the other colonialists took over Africa, they started to try and co-opt our pre-capitalist societies to the capitalist societies of Europe but on very disadvantageous terms of producing raw-materials in the form of agricultural and mineral inputs for European factories where machines had greatly boosted the production of products ever since the invention of the steam engine by Thomas Savory (1698) and the steam driven locomotive by George Stevenson (1823.”
“… Therefore, the African was being used by the now global capitalist system but not benefitting from the capitalist system. In any case, these capitalist penetrations into the pre-capitalist societies of Africa, with our fragmented markets, were shallow. That is how the economists coined the term: “enclave economies”; – economies that were characterized by having small islands of pseudo – modernity (producing raw-materials) surrounded by a sea of pre-capitalist backwardness described by Adam Smith.”
“In the case of Uganda, the small island of pseudo-modernity comprised of the 3Cs and 3Ts. These were: Coffee, Cotton and Copper; and the 3Ts were: Tea, Tobacco and Tourism. Coffee was not roasted locally at all … This enclave island of pseudo-modernity was employing 150,000 people by 1970 out of a population of 9.446 million people.”
“The bad luck of Uganda and other parts of Africa, owing to the weak political and military structures of the neo-colonies, was that even these enclaves could not survive. In the case of Uganda, Idi Amin and the ineffectual Obote II, had almost completely destroyed the 3Cs and 3Ts by 1986. Cotton was gone; Copper was gone; Tourism was gone; and Tea was gone (from 23 million kgs to 3 million kgs). It was only coffee and tobacco that were still limping on. The small pseudo-modern enclave had been replaced by the informal activities of magendo (smuggling), kibanda (currency black market) and kusamula (speculation in goods). The tax base had disappeared. The total economy – monetary and non-monetary – had shrunk by 25% by 1986 compared to 1970 (Collier and Reinikka, 2001). In dollars, the size of GDP in 1986 was US$1.26 billion.”
What is clear from these excerpts from the President’s 2018 paper, is that overcoming, transcending and superseding the constraining reality of “Enclave Economy” is a strategic national task – along the way to executing a qualitative leap from backwardness to modernity. The PDM is located within this “long, tortuous and circuitous” journey.
The President graphically isolates another strategic parameter – “failure of leadership”: “One of the continuing gaps is the problem of the 68% (now 39%, Mafabi) of the homesteads that are still in subsistence farming … This is a failure of leadership by the successive waves of leaders we have had ever since 1996. I invited you to Rwakitura to see the work I did in 1966 with my colleague, Mwesigwa Black, who died in the fighting of 1972. These former nomads have been transformed into settled commercial dairy farmers with reasonable monthly incomes, permanent houses with solar power on top of tap water from water harvesting. Many children are going to universities through private sponsorship and all children are going to schools.”
“All homesteads in the rural areas must, therefore, similarly engage in profitable commercial agriculture. Since many of them have small pieces of land …, I advised them to go for improved coffee, fruits, pasture for dairy farming by zero-grazing, food crops (cassava, bananas, Irish potatoes, etc.) and the backyard (ekanyima) activities of poultry for eggs, pigs as well as fish farming where feasible and apiary … Since 1995, after I had confirmed the correctness of my model, I have been bringing delegations here, talking about this model and writing about it. Few are bothered about this. They continue with sterile leadership. What is leadership for if you do not have a formula for solving people’s problems?”
We continue the discussion next Monday.
K. David Mafabi
Senior Presidential Advisor/Political Affairs (Special Duties)
State House.