The country of Uganda has soured in population from 6.8 million in 1960 to 34.4 million in 2010. Currently Uganda is experiencing a growth rate of 3% per year, making it one of the fastest growing populations in the world. It is estimated that by the year 2060 the Ugandan population will be just shy of 113 million people according to the United Nations Population Division. This creates a variety of issues and a divide between the President of Uganda, who has been in power for twenty-six years and the citizens of Uganda.
The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, finds that this population boost will be good for Uganda and will help boost the economy. At a Presidential lecture marking fifty years of Uganda's independence, President Museveni cites Uganda's former colonizer, the United Kingdom, who has relatively the same land mass, having a population of near 60 million and living comfortably. He also goes on to explain that Uganda has the natural resources that countries like the UK do not. With these natural resources he believes that Uganda can drastically improve its economic state over the next half century.
However, in order for this to happen many institutions need to be put in place and be changed in order for Uganda to thrive. The first of such is to improve the economy by creating jobs. Along with this, public service systems must be put in place like that of education and health care. With a rising population better forms of health care have to be put in place to accommodate for the millions of new citizens that will be apart of the population in the next fifty years. Along with this, millions of new jobs must be created to employ an ever increasing population. However, to make sure these people are qualified to work these new jobs they must be properly educated. Without the education, a young population of thirty million will have little to look forward to, which will create uprisings and problems within the system.
Currently, Ugandan's are already saying that the government has failed to accommodate for the current 35 million Ugandan's that are looking for some form of leadership and progression. With a population rising at 3% per year the government must make improvements to the quality of life of Ugandan citizens or the countries output will not look prosperous moving forward. However, there is hope in that Uganda has a wealth of natural resources. If they can extract and export their resources, while maintaining fair and reasonable conditions for their citizens, it could make Uganda a rising nation in sub-saharan Africa. With a huge oil supply in Uganda the government says it plans for the state to be a middle-income country by 2040, and the President says he has hopes for it to be a first-world country within the next 50 years. If these plans are to come true much needs to be done however, starting with the overall infrastructure of the country. This can only be applied if the government comes up with a fair and realistic plan to how it is going to accommodate for a population that is rising by 3% annually.
The reason I chose to write on this article is because of what we have talked about in class with African leaders and their inability to transform their states into working economies with a well run infrastructure. With a rapidly rising population, Uganda must find a way to create jobs and better educate their citizens. Like many African nations, Uganda has failed to properly build their infrastructure and economy. We should care about this issue because with a rising population and a lack of education, jobs, and money, it could lead to having serious issues within the country. Like we have seen in class, citizens that are unhappy with their governments could very easily begin to protest, leading to eventual violence. There has already been some violent responses to protests of citizens, which will only escalate if changes are not made. Freedom house has given Uganda a downward trend due to increased corruption, inflation and the cracking down on the freedom of the press. Publicly the government is saying they are working towards an electoral democracy that will give citizens all equal rights, however since the multiparty system was introduced in 2005 little has been done to truly have any form of democracy. Uganda seems to have issues on hand that could lead to extensive problems moving forward.
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Will Brandin
I thought your comment on the inability of African leaders to transform their respective governments into effective ones was spot on. Leaders like Museveni have to realize that infrastructure and other domestic necessities can only be fostered with proper policies and not having a solution to the massive population growth will only increase the burdens that the Ugandan government is currently baring.
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ReplyDeleteWhile you do document the problems of a democratic breakdown perhaps occurring, are you perhaps too pessimistic in regards to Uganda? It does seem like the country has experienced sustained growth in the past decade
While it was mentioned in the post, it's worth highlighting that Uganda has a growing population that is exceptionally young due to HIV/AIDS. This could be extremely problematic but on the flip side (with a more positive note) there is a unique opportunity to nurture a more open minded, optimistic population. Education is obviously key here, perhaps more so than job creation. An interesting scenario is educating Ugandan youth to create their own jobs. I met a social entrepreneur who is working with the Ugandan government to create a curriculum to foster social entrepreneurship. This way, students can not only be empowered with knowledge but also invent their own methods to improve the state of their communities and create jobs for themselves.
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