Tag Archives: yoweri kaguta museveni

Ugandan seed distributors aren’t adulterating seeds, it’s probably a problem of handling and storage

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This is from a new paper by Alicia Barriga and Nathan Fiala in World Development:

Results from the tests showed very high levels of DNA similarity (above 98%) and good performance in general, but highly variable quality in terms of the ability of the seed to germinate under standard conditions. We do not see differences in average outcomes across the distribution levels, though variation in seed performance does increase further down the supply chain.

ugandaseedsThe results of the tests point to potentially important issues for the quality of seeds. The variation in germination suggests that buying a random bag of seeds in this particular distribution chain can matter a lot for farmer’s production. The high rate of seed similarity suggests that the main concern among policy makers and researchers, that sellers add inert or low-quality material to the seeds, is likely not the case, at least for the maize sector in the districts we study. However, given the remoteness of these districts and the lack of any oversight in these areas, we believe the results are likely a lower bound for the country as a whole.

The supply chain analysis suggests that the quality of seed does not deteriorate along the supply chain. The quality is the same, on average, across all types of suppliers after leaving the breeders. However, we observe high variation of seeds’ performance results on germination, moisture, and vigor, suggesting that results are more consistent with issues of mishandling and poor storage of seeds, possibly related to temperature or quality controls, rather than sellers purposefully adulterating seeds. Variation on these indicators is usually associated with mishandling during transportation and storage.

As the authors note in the paper, African governments and their external donors have put a lot of effort in “certification and labeling so as to reduce the possibility of adulteration by downstream sellers”. Obviously, e-labels and systems of verifying seed authenticity in the fight against adulteration are important. But equally important is an understanding of how the seed distribution system works. And that is one of the major contributions of this paper. Corruption is not always the problem.

Read the whole paper here.

fao_eac

Interestingly, Uganda bests both Kenya and Tanzania on productivity in the cereal sector (I made the graph using FAO data). Despite starting off with relatively lower productivity and having gone through civil conflict beginning in the late 1970s, Uganda has since around 2007 clearly separated itself from both Kenya and Tanzania (and appears to have plateaued). Productivity in Kenya peaked in the early 1980s and has pretty much stagnated since. Tanzania’s figures appear to be trending upwards having collapsed in the early 2000s. There is likely an element of soil quality and general aridity involved in these trends. According to the FAO, Kenya and Tanzania use fertilizer at significantly higher rates than Uganda. For comparison, cereal yield in Vietnam is about 2.7 times higher than in Uganda.

 

Former US Ambassador to Kenya lobbying to stop South Sudan war crimes court

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This is from Foreign Policy:

The South Sudanese government hired Gainful Solutions Inc., a California-based lobbying group, for a two-year contract worth $3.7 million to boost ties between South Sudan and Trump administration. As one part of the overall contract between the South Sudanese government and the lobbying group, Gainful Solutions will push to “Delay and ultimately block establishment of the hybrid court envisaged” under a 2018 peace deal between the government, led by President Salva Kiir, and his longtime rival, opposition figure Riek Machar.

Gainful Solutions is run by Ranneberger, U.S. ambassador to Kenya, speaks at news conference in Nairobi, a former career U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to Kenya from 2006 to 2011, and the lobbyist Soheil Nazari-Kangarlou. Constance Berry Newman, a former senior State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development official under the George W. Bush administration, is also named a consultant on the project for a $5,000 fee, according to public disclosure filings from the Department of Justice.

The U.S. government is funding the process (through the African Union) of setting up the court, to the tune of $4.8m.

Here is Human Rights Watch on the court:

The Hybrid Court for South Sudan, set out in the country’s 2015 and 2018 peace deals, could be an important way to hold perpetrators to account for horrific abuses committed in a conflict characterized by unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances, rape and sexual violence, and destruction of property. More than four million have been forced to flee their homes.

The court, which would bring together judges and prosecutors from South Sudan and across Africa, is urgently needed to curtail impunity for serious crimes that continue to fuel a cycle of violence in the country. As Human Rights Watch has documented, the country’s domestic court system is not prepared to handle such sensitive, complex cases.

In 2014, the African Union undertook an unprecedented Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan, detailing the serious crimes committed by all parties to the conflict. And since the 2015 peace deal was signed, the AU Commission has been trying to secure approval from the South Sudanese authorities for the initial steps required for the hybrid court’s creation.

Everyone is rightfully outraged. More than 400,000 have died since South Sudan descended into civil war and millions more were displaced.

These revelations also highlight the many challenges the court is likely to face if and when it is eventually set up. South Sudanese political elites (on both sides of the post-2014 conflict) are not particularly keen on facing justice for atrocities committed against civilians and armed actors. It is also unclear if Juba’s friends in Kampala, Nairobi, or Addis have any incentive to inject yet another variable into the ongoing efforts to establish a modicum of stability in South Sudan.

Moral outrage alone will not move the needle. The court’s success will depend on how much pivotal actors within IGAD are willing to lean on Machar and Kiir.

As far as lobbying in Washington, DC goes, this is yet another reminder that even weak states like South Sudan are not passive members of the international system. While their options are limited on account of their position in the hierarchical structure of the state system, they still have agency and have a variety of tools at their disposal through which they can influence the behavior of much more powerful states. See also here.

More on debt, macroeconomic stability, and natural resources in Africa (Uganda Edition)

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See earlier posts on this subject here and here. Below is a quote from FP on Uganda’s growing petroleum sector (see also the Global Witness report on Uganda’s secret oil contracts here):

Source: Global Witness

Uganda’s Projected Oil Production Curve. Source: Global Witness

The bulk of Ugandan government borrowing against future oil revenues has focused on grand infrastructure schemes built and funded by the Chinese. In 2014 alone, the government signed deals with China to build two hydropower dams worth $2.2 billion, a standard gauge railway that could cost up to $8 billion, and a $600 million fertilizer plant. Additional projects include a $2 billion oil field being developed by the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation and a $350 million roadbetween Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and Entebbe International Airport. The possibility has even been raised that a Chinese bank may bail out Ugandan parliamentarians in danger of going to jail for failure to honor their debts.

And how efficiently is Uganda spending the [expensive] borrowed money?

Costs for the Ugandan section of the East African Standard Gauge Railway are especially out of control. The project had an initial price tag of $4.5 billion for the Ugandan side of the railway, compared to $3.8 billion for the Kenyan side. Estimated costs in Uganda subsequently shot up, first to $8 billion and then to a staggering $11 billion

So what will happen when China decides to deal with its public debt situation and the effects propagate to its many public companies involved in mega-projects in Africa?

To reiterate, let’s not declare mission accomplished in the war against the resource in Africa just yet.

Birthday politics in Uganda

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President Museveni’s plans to succeed himself in 2016 have come under fresh attack. Activists in Uganda staged a mock birthday party, complete with gifts, to celebrate Museveni’s 73rd birthday. Police dispersed participants at the mock party and even seized the birthday cake.

The politics behind Museveni’s date of birth stem from the fact that the Ugandan constitution bars those over 75 to run for president. Museveni insists that he is 68, which means that he will be 73 in 2016 and still eligible to run for president. The opposition maintains that based on its own research the president is 73.

It appears that the latest strategy of the Ugandan opposition is to de-legitimize Museveni using his own rules.

So why should Museveni care if a bunch of activists stage a mock birthday party for him?

The beginning of the downfall of authoritarian systems is when the opposition goes legal on the regime. By highlighting the inconsistencies in the legal structure and challenging the regime using its own rules, the opposition forces the regime to continue tinkering with the very same rules.

But tinkering with the rules creates winners and losers within the regime. Ultimately it is those that find themselves with the short end of the stick that jump ship and join the opposition in an effort to oust the ancien regime.

President Museveni should consult with Kenya’s former President Moi on how events unfolded after the fiasco that was the 1988 mlolongo (queuing) election. It will take time, but kila mwizi ako na siku arubaini (every thief has forty days).

You can find the BBC story on the Uganda protests here.

electoral democracy and inflation in africa

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UPDATE: A related paper is here. [HT Julie]

Central bank independence is still the exception rather than the rule in most of Africa. This then raises the question of what effects elections – with the high associated costs of buying votes – have on the inflation rate.

For instance, Uganda has been experiencing inflation (a.k.a walk to work) riots following Museveni’s reelection. Many in Uganda and beyond have attributed the hike in the cost of living not just to global trends (food and oil prices) but also to Museveni’s massive reelection budget. Just before the Ugandan elections in February the president doled out cash like he was “printing his own money.”

Next door in Kenya rumors abound that the recent hike in oil prices, the failure to resettle IDPs and other forms of grand corruption are related to politicians amassing a war chest for next year’s general election.

This raises the question: Is there a correlation between election years and inflation in Africa?

My first stab at this reveals rather weak correlations between election years and trends in inflation rates in a number of African states. (Shown below are Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, Senegal). The vertical dotted lines indicate election years.

In the regressions different lags produce different results.

That said, it appears that competitive elections are significantly correlated with hikes in the inflation rates for up to three years (elections are “competitive” if the incumbent gets less than 2/3 of the vote).

Given the fact that Museveni’s vote share was trending downward in 1995, 2001 and 2006 (75%, 69% and 59% respectively), the NRM leader must have panicked and opened the floodgates for this past election.

Election monitoring and international sanctions against cheating have made the stealing of elections a very costly endeavor. But politicians are smart. If you can’t stuff the ballot boxes you can certainly intimidate voters or buy them off.

My hope is that with time the buying off of voters option will become institutionalized and made impartial to party ID.

al-shabaab may be linked to kampala blasts

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UPDATE: The daily nation reports that Somalia’s insurgent group al-Shabab has claimed the bombings that killed dozens in Kampala yesterday. The Atlantic’s Max Fisher offers an interesting analysis of the bombings.

Blasts in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, killed at least 64, the BBC reports. According to the report Ugandan security forces suspect that the bomb attacks may have been carried out by Somali insurgent groups. Ugandan troops are the backbone of the 5000 strong African Union contingent propping up the hapless transitional government of Somalia. The main rebel group in Somalia, the islamist al-Shabab, has previously threatened to attack Uganda in connection with its military presence in Somalia.

These attacks may be the beginning of a new security problem in the wider east African region. Since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991 the Somali’s have largely kept their violence within their borders, the only regional effect being the proliferation of light arms and the recent surge in piracy off the Somali coast. But that will change now that internationally-linked groups like al-Shabab are willing to export violence beyond the Somali borders. It might be time for unconventional approaches to the Somalia problem.

Uganda is scheduled to host a high profile African Union summit next week and security must be an even bigger concern for the Ugandan government in light of these attacks.