The Shifting Fortunes of the Economic Technocracy in Uganda: Caught Between State-building and Regime Survival?

Uganda’s impressive levels of economic growth over most of the past three decades have often been linked to the performance of its economic technocracy, particularly the government’s high-powered Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development (MFPED). This paper argues that MFPED (or parts thereof) can indeed be seen as ‘pockets of effectiveness’, with the Ministry often managing to deliver effectively on its mandate, in a context in which this is not the norm. This can be explained in part by the functional and legally mandated nature of some of the tasks that MFPED delivers and in part by the strong levels of international support and oversight. However, we also find that MFPED’s performance has varied considerably over time, despite these favourable factors, particularly in terms of its capacity to control the budgetary process and public expenditure. This variation can be traced to shifts within Uganda’s political settlement, which moved from being broadly ‘dominant-developmental’ to ‘vulnerable-populist’ in character from the early 2000s onwards. This shift profoundly altered the ‘embedded autonomy’ that MFPED had previously enjoyed with regards its relationship with State House, in ways that have undermined MFPED’s capacity to deliver on its mandate. Despite efforts to regain both power and autonomy in recent years, MFPED remains subject to the politics of regime survival in Uganda, in ways that undermine its effectiveness. Whilst this may loosen the hold of neoliberal economic governance in Uganda and enable alternative perspectives to emerge, the more immediate effects have been to damage prospects for policy coherence and economic growth in the country

The Politics of Inclusive Development: Interrogating the Evidence.

It is now widely accepted that politics plays a significant role in shaping the possibilities for inclusive development. However, the specific ways in which this happens across different types and forms of development, and in different contexts, remains poorly understood. This collection provides the state of the art review regarding what is currently known about the politics of inclusive development. Leading academics offer systematic reviews of how politics shapes development across multiple dimensions, including through growth, natural resource governance, poverty reduction, service delivery, social protection, justice systems, the empowerment of marginalized groups, and the role of both traditional and non-traditional donors. The book not only provides a comprehensive update but also a groundbreaking range of new directions for thinking and acting around these issues. The book’s originality thus derives not only from the wide scope of its case-study material, but also from the new conceptual approaches it offers for thinking about the politics of inclusive development, and the innovative and practical suggestions for donors, policymakers, and practitioners that flow from this

Do revolving funds generate self-employment and increase incomes for the poor? Experimental evidence from Uganda’s Youth Livelihood Programme

Dofiles, ready-for-analysis data used in the analysis published in the Final Report to 3ie on the project, "Do revolving funds generate self-employment and increase incomes for the poor? Experimental evidence from Uganda's youth livelihood programme" (project code UPW.03.IE.UYDL). This project was funded as part of the Uganda Policy Window round