THE 31ST SUMMIT OF THE AFRICAN PEER REVIEW FORUM

Friday, February 4, 2022

His Excellency, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairperson of the Forum; 

 

Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government; 

 

The APRM Focal Points;

 

The APR Panel of Eminent Persons; 

 

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen. 

 

At this 31st Summit of the African Peer Review (APR) Forum, Uganda presents its “Second Annual Progress Report on the Implementation of the National Programme of Action for the period July 2019 – June 2021”. This is in line with the APRM objectives and processes.  As we near to mark the 20th anniversary next year, I wish to congratulate all the 41 Members Countries that have now ascended to Africa’s home-grown governance initiative.

During this period, Uganda is the second African Union (AU) Member State, after Kenya, to have completed a second governance review under this mechanism in 2018. The National Programme of Action (NPOA) was developed that has mobilized and guided actions of government and other stakeholders towards improving good governance. This Programme of Action has been integrated in the Third National Development Plan (NDPIII) 2020/21 – 2024/25 and budgeting framework to ensure its implementation and monitoring. 

Your Excellencies, Uganda remains committed to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process. 

Your Excellencies, allow me to provide some highlights on Uganda’s Second Annual Progress Report on the Implementation of the National Programme of Action for the period July 2019 – June 2021. This report documents the progress made towards implementing the findings of the Country Review Report 2018, identifies areas of notable achievements, best practices and highlights some of the remaining governance challenges.

Below are highlights of some of the areas where Uganda has registered progress during the period under review presented as per thematic area.

Thematic Area 1: Democracy and Political Governance

oUganda has continued to consolidate and deepen constitutional democracy. For example, the Country conducted peaceful general elections, the COVID-19 Pandemic notwithstanding;

 

oIndependence of the Judiciary has been strengthened with the enactment of the Administration Judiciary Bill in 2020;

oPromoting Pan-Africanism. Strengthening relations with our neighbors including Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - joint efforts to eliminate the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF); bilateral relations with Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan.

Recommendations to accelerate Progress

oStrengthen enforcement of laws and implement the National Anti-corruption Strategy (NACS), 2019/20 – 2023/24 to effectively curb corruption

oPrioritize establishment of a Constitutional Review Commission. Government needs to fast track formation of Constitutional Review Commission to consider various constitutional reforms.  

Thematic Area 2: Economic Governance and Management

oMaintained macroeconomic stability, despite of the COVID-19 threat on the operations of the national economy, particularly on the disruptions of various value chains. We have registered big progress in terms of new innovations in areas of import substitution and export diversification during this period. Gold exports alone have exceeded USD 1bn annually. Coffee exports have increased by 1.32 million 60kgs of coffee between 2018 and 2020;

oUganda has made significant progress in the Oil sector including the construction of the Crude Oil Pipeline, the Oil refinery and the airport, the final investment decision has been reached;

oIntroduction of the Parish Development Model for ensuring balanced development across the Country through inclusive growth and hence, “no one is left behind”;

oGovernment established Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) recovery fund to help enterprises affected by the COVID-19 containment measures; 

oThere have been improvements in infrastructure provision in terms of the total paved roads network as a percentage of total national roads that has more than doubled from 8% (1,000km) in 1986 to 21.1% (5,419 km) as of February 2021; rail rehabilitation and power generation and distribution.

Recommendations to accelerate Progress

oDeepen investments in the productive sectors for jobs and wealth creation: Commercial agriculture; Industrialization; Services; and Information and Communications Technology (ICT);

oIncrease capitalization of the Uganda Development Bank (UDB) to enable investors in the productive sectors access long term and low-interest loans;

oGovernment should continue pursuing the ongoing efforts in rolling out the Parish Development Model (PDM) to further support the 39% homesteads in subsistence farming to commercialize and create wealth for themselves and raise household incomes. 

Thematic Area 3: Corporate Governance

oUganda global ranking in the ease of doing business has improved from 135th to 116th out of 190 countries; the ease of doing business index for Uganda also improved to 60 from 56.94 in FY 2018/19;

oUganda has made impressive advancements in online services provision with Uganda’s online index now standing at 58 percent above the African average of 34 percent;  

oAmendment of several laws to aid corporate governance.

 

 

Recommendations to accelerate Progress

oFurther address the bottlenecks to investment and doing business. For instance, high cost of credit, electricity and transport; 

oStrengthen enforcement and protection of patent rights and industrial designs to earn the confidence of potential investors.

4.0 Thematic Area 4: Socio-economic Development

oProvision of equal opportunities amongst women, youth, elderly and the disabled. We now have more representation of women in Parliament. The older persons are also represented in the 11th Parliament as a Special Interest Group;

oProgress on creating productive employment and decent work for all, particularly young people and women;

oExpansion of the scope and coverage of social protection services to improve the resilience and productive capacity of vulnerable persons;

oIncreased electricity access and utilization now standing at 28 percent while unit cost for ordinary consumers stood at 8.3 US cents from 13.8 US cents. Uganda’s installed generation capacity was 1,252.4 MW, an increase from 984 MW in 2018 and 150MW in FY1986/87. In light of this, electricity generation is no longer a problem. However, the challenge remains transmission, distribution and cost to further increase access and utilization. There have also been achievements in expanding the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) that stands at 3,918 Km after the connection of an additional 524 km by June, 2021;

oEnhanced support to various research and innovation projects that has led to overall proportion of adopted prototypes to increase from 11 percent between FY2018/19 to 77.8 percent over the same period.

Recommendations to accelerate Progress

oGovernment should continue with the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda of increasing access to quality health care services. While there are several achievements in health such as, reducing the Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) from 506 in FY1986/87 to 336; Life expectancy increasing to 63 years from 43 years in 1995, expanding health care access is important in the human capital development agenda;

oAddress the critical and systemic barriers to youth employment. For instance, further building demand driven skills interventions for young people so that training is responsive and relevant to market needs.

Your Excellencies, Uganda continues to progress well in the implementation of the Program of Action (POA). While there is mixed progress due to the global COVID 19 challenges, the Country continued to innovate and build resilient systems in the implementation of the Program of Action (POA).  

The details of the progress on implementation can be found in the copies of Uganda’s Second Annual Progress Report that has been distributed to you. 

I pledge my government’s commitment to ensure that issues identified in this report are addressed within our existing legal framework and available resources.  We are also keen to learn the best practices from member Countries. 

Finally, I would like to appreciate the Forum for accepting to consider review of Countries along the Strategic Bottlenecks hindering effective socio-economic transformation of the African Continent. Africa needs to eliminate these bottlenecks.  

I thank you. 

 

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni 

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA