I did not attend the High-
level Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), as I was not yet in New York. Nevertheless, I
would like to inform the General Assembly that
Uganda will definitely achieve the following MDGs:
Goal 1, on the eradication of extreme poverty and
hunger; Goal 2, on achieving universal primary
education; Goal 3, on the empowerment of women and
the promotion of gender equality; Goal 7, on ensuring
environmental sustainability; and Goal 8, on creating a
global partnership for development.
It is only in the areas of maternal and child health
that we may not achieve by 2015 the targets set.
However, in Uganda, we have developed a national
road map to accelerate the reduction of maternal and
child mortality and morbidity, which is a
comprehensive strategy that clearly spells out our
national priorities in this area. In this strategy, we have
given priority to four key intervention types, namely
effective antenatal care, skilled attendance at birth,
emergency care for women who experience
complications in childbirth and family planning. We
have also given priority to creating infrastructure that
supports and strengthens the health-care system.
Regarding MDG 6, Uganda has made tremendous
efforts with respect to HIV/AIDS prevention and
control. We are now renewing our efforts to deal with
the challenges of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
It is noteworthy that, overall, Uganda was
recently ranked among the middle performing
countries according to the United Nations
Development Programme’s Human Development
Index. However, in Uganda, we have never believed in
donor-anchored responses to the MDGs as a
sustainable solution. Responses to the MDGs should be
anchored in the growth and transformation of the
economies of the target countries. I am therefore glad
that the cloud of Afro-pessimism is dispersing. The
opinions of the Afro-pessimists are being consigned to
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where they have always belonged — to the dung-heap
of history.
Some groups in the West, where Afro-pessimism
abounded in the past, have now started talking of the
African lions, no doubt equating in their minds the
performance of the African economies with the Asian
tigers of yesteryear. Groups like the McKinsey Global
Institute are beginning to group the African
economies — which collectively recorded a growth
rate of 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product in the
gloomy years of the recent global depression,
compared with the mere 2 per cent of gross domestic
product that the countries of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development recorded in
the same period — into four categories. Those
categories are: diversified economies, oil-exporting
economies, economies in transition and pre-transition
economies. Uganda was put in the group of transition
economies.
Although the McKinsey group needs to improve
their statistical base and some of their insights, they are
among the first Western groups to recognize what
we — who have been working on African issues for a
long time, on goals we set out to achieve in the years
after independence — long knew was possible: to make
Africa move from Third World to First World, in the
words of Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of
Singapore.
Although there are 53 economies of Africa being
managed by the respective national authorities, reform
trends and ideas are sometimes shared. The McKinsey
group estimates that the consumption level of Africa,
which stood at $860 billion in 2008, will grow to
$1.4 trillion by 2020.
What one needs to add is the fact that those
economies have become roaring lions, underdeveloped
infrastructure notwithstanding. What will happen when
the infrastructure bottlenecks are resolved? That is the
question that one should ask oneself. What will happen
when there is cheap and abundant electricity, cheap
road transport and cheap rail transport? Those areas
had been neglected for a long time. The study by the
McKinsey Global Institute revealed that there are now
316 million new mobile phone subscribers since the
year 2000 in Africa, more than the entire population of
the United States. In other words, there are now more
mobile phones in Africa than there are American
people living in the United States.
There are 600 million hectares of uncultivated
arable land in Africa. If our partners could concentrate
on assisting infrastructure development, Africa’s
transition would be that much faster. All the same, a
country like Uganda is transitioning. Aid in relevant
sectors is welcome, but even without aid we are
moving forward.
I know the theme of the general debate is
“Reaffirming the central role of the United Nations in
global governance”. In my short address I have not
talked directly about this. I have instead spoken about
Africa’s economic reawakening as a roaring lion. Was I
irrelevant? I do not think so. It is those strong building
blocks that will strengthen the United Nations.
Africa has been a weak link in the chain of the
struggle for improved governance in the world over the
last 50 years. Improved economic performance in
Africa is, therefore, good for the continent and also
good for the rest of the world.