When journalists joined Museveni in marketing Uganda abroad

By Ofwono Opondo  
                                        
In 2023, Turkey will be celebrating its centenary as a republic and its present leaders target becoming the 10th largest economy in the world from its current 18th position and the second largest contributor to the NATO military alliance.

Turkey’s current gross domestic product (GDP) is $800b and income per capita $10,000.

From that perspective, one would assume that if such a country established diplomatic relations with you and its investors expressed willingness in doing business in your country, you would welcome them with open arms, give them every detail there is to give and prepare yourself to engage with them for your country’s long-term benefit.

Some of the visiting Ugandan journalists in a group with some of the Ugandan students in Turkey at the Ugandan Embassy in Ankara, Turkey

Unfortunately, as my journey with 13 other senior media people last week revealed, Uganda’s bureaucracy is yet to be broken! We were told by nearly every person we met, including Uganda’s ambassador in Ankara, Johnson Agara Olwa, that over 10 drafts of memorandums of understanding on various investments are stuck up in Kampala without the slightest official response. Consequently, Turkish businesspeople have resorted to seeing individuals, who as is expected in Uganda con them.

Through the Uganda Media Centre, the Turkish Embassy in Uganda sponsored the five-day trip which was a generous gesture mainly to foster trade and investment by opening up both markets. It was a platform for us to tell the Uganda story as a politically and economically secure country conducive to receive foreign investments and not aid.

This former Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empire that now describes itself as an Afro-Eurasian country straddling two continents of Europe and Asia hasn’t apparently been discovered by African and more so Ugandan business people which should be our target. Together with China, Turkey tops the world’s construction industry, which ought to be reason enough for Uganda policy makers to pick interests in knowing and working with them on how they are overtaking European colonial powers.

Turkey is currently among the top seven countries in terms of diplomatic representation around the world.

With the government focus firmly on building infrastructure — roads, railways, energy and irrigation systems to power our productivity, it would be a good idea to add Turkey to the national value chain of education, investment and business partnerships, especially if they are providing long-term funding, technology, expertise, entrepreneurship and good quality work.

Ofwono Opondo handing over a pack of Uganda’s branded coffee to Gulberk Asyapar, the Director Corporate Affairs of the TURSAB, in Istanbul on May 14

Turkey, which currently boasts of 40 million tourists annually, will in December, 2015 in the city of Izmir, host a world tourism fair and congress expected to bring together many countries, Uganda inclusive to prepare new cooperation agreements, launch new products, identify and attract new partners, showcase new tourism trends, strengthen brand awareness and hopefully achieve an impact on world media.

It is being organised by the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB), under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. I believe it is time that we all became eloquent, disciplined, informative and effective marketing gurus to attract investments to Uganda in whatever we do daily.

While travelling to Turkey, we carried several small bags of Uganda’s branded coffee given to us by the Uganda Tourism Board, which I handed over to each head of delegation we met both in Ankara and Istanbul. It was lovely being seen with the other Uganda journalists distributing the branded Uganda coffee with relish.

However, that was as far as we could go because we had not adequately prepared for the journey, except to tell our audiences by word of mouth that we come from Uganda, a “Country Gifted by Nature”, which sounded very stupid as back home we cannot even feed ourselves properly.

Walter Isegend (left) and Isaac Omoding of the Vision Group were part of the media team

At the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Industry, we were told, and demonstrated to that Turkey exports up to 1,707 agricultural finished products to 109 countries.

And although agriculture accounts for only 3.5% of the GDP, it brings in $57b. Turkey produces 42 million sheep, 300 million birds, three million tonnes of meat, 17 billion eggs and 18 million tonnes of milk annually. Uganda only exports $10m worth of tobacco, oil seeds and legumes in raw form.

We learnt something about “gastronomy and health tourism”, which basically means food diversity as one of the best ways to express the relationship between lifestyle, health and culture through ensuring the highest standards so as to attract high spenders.

In a sense we came upclose with both Emperor Constantine and Sultan Mehmet, the conqueror whose former palace like Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, Byzantine Basilica of St. Irene and Hagia Sophia are now cultural sites. From a Ugandan perspective, Turkey is a country that deserves geopolitical attention in the grand picture.

In my view, Turkey is a country grossly undiscovered by Africa, yet as the 18th largest economy it offers good trade, investment and affordable technology transfer.

In Uganda, most non-Muslims have never entered a mosque, but we entered the huge Blue Mosque for midday prayers and then onto Hagia Sophia that is said to have been the largest church in the world for over 1,000 years until Muslims turned it into a mosque, it is now a museum. Hopefully the dispute has ended.

The writer is the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre and Government spokesperson