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Uganda Regional Cooperation
In addition to sporadic attempts to revive the defunct
East
African Community, composed of Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania,
Uganda participated in four regional economic
organizations.
These included the PTA, the Lomé Convention, the Kagera
Basin
Organization, and the Intergovernmental Authority on
Drought and
Development (IGADD). The PTA, with fifteen member states
in east,
central, and southern Africa, aimed to create a regional
common
market, liberalize trade, and encourage cooperation in
industry,
agriculture, transport, and communications. The
progressive
liberalization of intra-PTA trade began on July 1, 1984,
with the
adoption of a common list of 209 items of trade. A
multilateral
clearing facility was established in Harare in February
1984. It
handled transactions worth US$10 million in 1985 and twice
that
amount in 1987. A PTA monetary unit of account (the
uapta), was
made equivalent to the SDR and used to settle interstate
debts
every two months. Outstanding balances were payable in
United
States dollars. The practical effect of the PTA was
constrained
by rules, known as "rules of origin," which allowed
preferential
treatment only for goods produced by companies in which
citizens
of the member state managed their operations and held at
least 51
percent of the equity in the company.
The Lomé Convention, a trade and aid agreement between
the
EEC and sixty-six African, Caribbean, and Pacific nations,
including forty-five African countries, guaranteed
duty-free
entry to the EEC for specific commodities from these
countries.
Uganda has benefited from this agreement and assistance
from the
European Development Fund, which disbursed aid to member
countries.
In 1981 Uganda joined the Kagera Basin Organization,
which
was established by Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi in 1977.
The
organization's major goal was to develop 60,000 square
kilometers
of the Kagera River Basin, which extended into all four
countries. Areas of interest to the organization included
transport, agriculture, power, mining, hydroelectricity,
and
external finance, but by the late 1980s its programs were
slowed
by funding constraints.
Six East African countries established IGADD in 1986.
IGADD
members included Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia,
Sudan, and
Uganda. The organization's aim was to coordinate and
channel
funding into key regional programs addressing the issues
of
drought, desertification, and agricultural development.
IGADD
received approximately US$70 million in aid in 1987 but by
1989
had not yet completed any of its development and
environmental
projects.
* * *
Authoritative information on the Ugandan economy can be
found
in the Background to the Budget, which is published
annually by Uganda's Ministry of Planning and Economic
Development. Two Ugandan newspapers are also useful--the
government publication, New Vision, and
Financial
Times, which specializes in economic reporting.
Economic
statistics are available through the publications of the
major
international financial institutions, including the World
Bank
and the International Monetary Fund. The best secondary
sources
on Uganda, widely available in the United States, are the
publications of the Economist Intelligence Unit, including
the
annual Country Profile: Uganda and quarterly
Country
Report: Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and
monthly
reports of Africa Research Bulletin, Economic
Series. For
information on Uganda's early economic development, see
the
three-volume History of East Africa published by
Oxford
University. (For further information and complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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