President Museveni Attends The 11th ARFSD Conference at Speke Resort Munyonyo скачать в хорошем качестве

President Museveni Attends The 11th ARFSD Conference at Speke Resort Munyonyo

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has called on African nations to take charge of their development agendas through homegrown solutions and regional integration. He noted that external support, while helpful, is not a guarantee for sustainable progress in Africa. The President made the remarks today while officiating at the 11th Session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD-11), which took place at the Speke Resort Convention Centre in Munyonyo, Kampala. The three-day forum is held under the theme: “Driving job creation and economic growth through sustainable, inclusive, science and evidence-based solutions for the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063”. The Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) is an annual platform convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in collaboration with the African Union and host governments. At the event, the President was in company of the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Maama Janet Museveni and H.E Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. “The solutions are with us,” President Museveni emphasized. He recounted a recent disagreement between Uganda and some Western countries following the enactment of legislation concerning homosexuality. “We had an argument with Europeans recently. We passed a law which was discussing homosexuality here. Then the United States removed us from the AGOA list, and they chased us. The World Bank stopped giving us loans, but our economy still grew by 6%.” According to the President, Uganda’s resilience amid global criticism demonstrates that the country and indeed Africa can achieve progress even in the absence of external aid. “What’s crucial for me, apart from our own mistakes, is regional integration. If we avoid them, we can go far,” he added. President Museveni highlighted that Uganda’s economy has developed rapidly, with or without foreign assistance. He offered an in-depth reflection on the country's economic history and transformation, tracing it back to the year 1900 when the British declared Uganda a protectorate after defeating local kings, noting that at that time, Uganda was a pre-capitalist traditional economy based on subsistence agriculture, livestock, artisanal trades (emyooga), fishing, and services such as traditional healing (kuragura). The President mentioned that the economy operated largely on barter trade (okuchurika), with limited use of cowrie shells (ensiimbi) as currency. By the time of independence in 1962, colonial authorities had built a small enclave economy; a limited island of modernity surrounded by widespread underdevelopment. He highlighted that the enclave economy was based on the 3Cs: Cotton, Coffee, and Copper, and the 3Ts: Tobacco, Tea, and Tourism, saying that these goods were exported in raw form, fetching only about 10% of their full value and exporting the associated jobs that could have come through local value addition. Even worse, the enclave economy covered only 4% of homesteads. “In 1971, Idi Amin seized power, and by the time the NRM government came to power in 1986, even the small enclave economy had largely collapsed, leaving only coffee and tobacco struggling on,” he said. President Museveni explained that his government had to start from scratch, rehabilitating a broken economy while bringing the rest of the population into productive activity. He noted that the NRM has since made notable strides: first, restoring the enclave economy by reviving some of the 3Cs and 3Ts. Secondly , he noted that expanding them where possible for instance, coffee exports have risen from 3 million bags in 1986 to 9 million today; thirdly , diversifying the economy through commercial production of milk, beef, leather, maize, fruits, and fish, among others and fourthly , adding value to raw materials; and fifth, transitioning into a knowledge economy, with innovations such as manufacturing of vehicles, vaccines and computers. He added that a major challenge the government faced was the large share of the population that was still engaged in subsistence production. As of 2013, 68% of homesteads were outside the money economy. In response, the President said that the government introduced Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), mobilizing the army to distribute free planting materials and breeding stock to households, citing that this approach later evolved into the Parish Development Model (PDM), a more sustainable and community-based strategy which organizes wealth-creation SACCOs at the parish level.