STATEMENT

BY

H.E YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

AT THE
TOKYO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN
DEVELOPMENT FORUM
HELD AT

KICC, NAIROBI

26TH AUGUST, 2016

Your Excellencies Heads of State and Government;

Development Partners;
International Diplomats;
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen;

Greetings. I am happy, again, to be part of this forum to

discuss the common future of Africa. Whenever I attend such
fora, I get one problem. This is the problem of discussing and
handling of African issues in a fragmented way just picking
one issue or two issues and highlighting those for some time
and, then, after some time, picking another bunch of issues
and doing the same with them. In the 1960s, it was a fashion
to talk about rural development as if rural development could
occur in isolation from other phenomena. Then, it became a
fashion to talk about education, again, in isolation from the
other factors. At other times, there is talk about health,
women issues, children rights, etc., but always in a fragmented
way.
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I have been watching this for the last 50 years. Our Movement,
the NRM (National Resistance Movement), utilizing the
advantage of the long experience, eventually, distilled 10
strategic bottlenecks that have been a blockage to Africas
growth and socio-economic transformation. In order not to
forget, there was also talk of sustainable development. What
were the ingredients of this sustainable development?
Everybody had differing packages of the relevant ingredients.
Even the Millennium Development Goals did not solve this
problem. These, you remember, were to:
(i)

eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

(ii)

achieve universal primary education;

(iii) promote gender equality and empower women;

(iv) reduce child mortality;
(v)

improve maternal health

(vi) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

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(vii) ensure environmental sustainability

(viii) develop a global partnership for development
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger how? The MDGs did
not say.
Utilizing the experience of the last 50 years, therefore, we
identified the 10 strategic bottlenecks. These are:
1.

Ideological disorientation. The main manifestation of

ideological disorientation is the opportunistic misuse of
identity at the expense of the genuine interests of the
people. Such genuine interests should answer the
question: Who will guarantee my prosperity? Is it the
members of my tribe or my religious sect that will do so or
is it the members of the other communities? Who will
buy my milk, my beef, my coffee, my bananas or my tea?
Ideological disorientation only emphasizes identity and
eclipses interests or even acts against the interests of the
people. This generates the sectarianism of tribe or religion
you have seen causing so much damage.
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2.

As a consequence of number one above, many African

countries end-up with weak States weak armies, civil
services, etc., because they are not based on merit or are
not ideologically oriented with the right attitude.

3.

The under-development of the human resource (lack of

education, lack of skills and poor health of the African
populations).

4.

Under-developed infrastructure (no electricity, no modern

roads, no modern railways, no ICT backbone, no piped
water, etc.); this makes the costs of production in the
economy go up and cannot, therefore, attract investments
so as to expand production and create jobs.

5.

As a consequence of number 4 above, there is no

industrialization and, therefore, Africa has continued to
suffer haemmorhage through the loss of money and jobs,
being a donor to other continents by continuing to export
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raw-materials where we get only 10% of the value of our

products (coffee, cotton, minerals, timber, etc., etc).
6.

The problem of a fragmented African market on account of

colonialism. The 53 former colonies, the modern African
States, are, individually, too small markets to attract,
retain investments and cause them to thrive. China, which
started liberalizing and opening up in 1978, (China
started participating in the UN system in 1982) has since
attracted a total of enterprises worth US $ 2.6 trillion.
The whole of Africa in that same period has only attracted
enterprises worth US $0.65 trillion.

(Source: UNTAD Website).

Yet China is still a communist country while most of Africa

is now democratic and operating really market-led
economies. What is the problem? One of them is a
fragmented market. The other bottlenecks also play a role
in discouraging and stifling investments. The other good
examples are poor infrastructure and a non-skilled
workforce. Fortunately, we have done a good job on this
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by creating ECOWAS, EAC, COMESA and SADC. We are

aiming at the common market of the whole of Africa.
Unfortunately, some actors continue to allow non-tariff
barriers. Yet the growing Purchasing Power of Africa
would have attracted investments if the African market
was really integrated.
7.

The under-developed services sector tourism, hotels,

banking (financial servicing expensive money, etc),
insurance, professional services (e.g. doctors hence
medical tourism to India, etc).

8.

The under-development of agriculture no complete

commercialization of agriculture (still alot of subsistence
agriculture 68% in the case of Uganda), no irrigation,
low use of fertilizers, poor disease control, poor soil
conservation, poor seeds and breeding stock, etc. The
population in the agricultural sector has, therefore, no
money and their purchasing power is low.
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9.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was the mistake on our

part of nationalizing private sector assets banks, shops,
farms, etc. This interference with the private sector by
policy or by corruption has also been another bottleneck.
The private sector is the most efficient engine of growth.

10. Suppression of democracy in the past has also been

another bottleneck.
I would, therefore, appeal to their Excellencies, the Heads of
State, to look at the totality of the challenges we face and if
they are convinced by this analysis to instruct the public
servants in our individual countries and the continental bodies
that service the African Union (AU) to look at the problems we
face in a comprehensive manner.
All this must lead to socio-economic transformation of the
African population from the various types of pre-capitalist
modes of social organizations to middle-class, skilled working
class societies. We cannot go on with the vague slogans of
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sustainable development. How can somebody be

sustainably a child? Nature dictates that child must
transform into teenager, teenager into youth and youth into
adult. There must be quantitative growth and qualitative
transformation for an organism to grow in a healthy way.

I thank you.

26th August, 2016

KICC, Nairobi