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OPINION

By Amb Allan Kajik

Those who watched and listened to President Yoweri Museveni making his remarks on Monday, April 29, 2024 during the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA)- Africa Heads of State Summit held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, Kenya should now not have any doubt in their minds about his vision for Uganda.

The World Bank should seriously consider President Museveni’s emphasis on the importance of socio-economic transformation and the need for loans that propel prosperity because that is what Africa and Uganda in particular now need.

The IDA is a development finance institution which offers concessional loans and grants to low-income countries. It is a member of the World Bank Group.

The IDA offers low-interest loans to 75 developing nations globally with more than half of them in Africa, but for these to be meaningful for Uganda, they need to be biased to sectors that boost growth and development such as cheap transport and power facilitators.

As President Museveni said, they need to fund railway transport in Africa and power investments which cause a reduction in the cost of transport and electricity respectively.

The IDA model of sustainable growth has not produced the desired development on the ground, the more reason the President asked them to change their funding model.

President Museveni told the World Bank president and team, and rightly so, that Africa does not need to be sustainable underdevelopment but socio-economic transformation, adding that you cannot have quantitative growth and you think you are doing anything.

He attributed the current crisis in Africa to persistent philosophical, ideological, strategic economic mistakes that have been in place since the 1960s and advocated a paradigm shift towards socio-economic transformation and the need to transcend mere quantitative growth and focus on achieving.

President Museveni also highlighted the main reasons why there’s no growth in Africa. He said this is so because the growth factors such as private sector-led growth are not funded. In order for the private sector to grow, it needs low costs of production in transport and electricity as well as low-cost funding for manufacturing.

As President William Ruto of Kenya rightly highlighted, the World Bank should consider increasing their funding to Africa from the current $93b.

The proposal by the G20 Group of experts to triple IDA’s financial capacity to $270b by 2030 while maintaining the crucial concession nature of its financing is reasonable. The IDA should put emphasis on low-cost funding for manufacturing and irrigation so as to stabilise agriculture not prioritising funding for seminars.

The IDA should indeed support President Museveni with cheap funding to help the 39% of Ugandans to join the money economy.

This would boost Uganda’s proactive resources to the Parish Development Model (PDM). This would help Uganda rescue the many Ugandans who are still outside the money economy and busy producing for consumption alone. It would also boost Uganda’s current annual injection of $300m to help the 39% Ugandans join the money economy by producing both for consumption and for the market.

However, for Uganda to achieve her growth and development aspirations, there is a need for drastic change of thinking of the neo-colonialist civil servants. They need to push for import substitution and export promotion. And as President Museveni rightly observed, Africa should stop exporting her raw materials but put more emphasis on adding value at source in order to steer development.

For God and my country.

The writer is the Deputy Head of Mission, Uganda High Commission — Ottawa, Canada