YouSaid · the spoken record

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI

lines on the record: 117
first: 1990-09-24
most recent: 2017-09-24
sittings or episodes: 10
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Finally, on the small issue of enforcing sanctions against North Korea, Uganda is in compliance. That is not a big problem, for we do not have to trade with North Korea. We are, however, grateful that, in the past, the North Koreans helped us to build our tank forces.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Koreans were temporarily divided towards the end of the Second World War. Why should this division be allowed to be permanent and a source of dangerous tensions? A unified Korea would be a very strong nation. Why do some actors fear strong nations in the world? Why should the Koreans themselves, North and South, allow external forces to continue to divide them? We always strive not to allow actors, foreign or local, to divide the African peoples, regardless of the complications involved. When one hears that Uganda accommodates many African refugees, it is on account of a conscious ideological position to not allow any actors to divide us. We fight only traitors. Who has been hurt by a unified Viet Nam since 1975, although the method of their unification was not the best one? Who has been hurt by the reunification of Germany since 1990?”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Therefore, in my opinion, parasitism is the only obstacle to global affluence, prosperity and peace. On the dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula, where very dangerous instruments of mass extermination are paraded around by the two contending sides, I have one question. My approach today is just to pose questions. I will not answer all of them, but I put them to the Assembly so that members can answer them themselves. I have one question. Who would lose if North Korea and South Korea, those kith and kin, were left alone to discuss their reunification? The Korean nation came into existence in 1234 A.D., according to the information available on the Internet. Why cannot these people — they are one people — discuss their reunification instead of maintaining a divided peninsula, the division of which it is our job to manage endlessly?”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“If we aimed at global affluence, how much would this impact business positively? Why, then, do we all have bad businessmen who do not have spectacles effective enough to see the implied business opportunities if we aim at global affluence? As a milk and beef producer myself, only a few months ago I was cautioning my fellow farmers against excessive greed as far as the price per litre of milk and per kilogram of beef were concerned. The farmers were trying to demand extremely high prices for beef and milk, but I warned them that if the milk were too expensive, the people might not buy it as much as if it were better priced. The more buyers we have for our products, the more prosperous we will be. We would therefore be both good businesspeople as well as good Christians, because we would be doing business in a fair way.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Who would lose if every adult had a well- paying job? Who would lose if every family on the globe had a decent, three-bedroom house? Who would lose if every person had access to clean water? Who would lose if no person on the globe had to worry about war, terrorism or crime? Who would lose if every provider of a service or producer of a good that is needed for use in the world had a right of access to markets? Who would lose if all the countries in the world had good transport and other elements of infrastructure? Who would lose if we all insisted on protecting Mother Nature so that it can also look after us? To what extent would this effort at global affluence stimulate business? How much cement, steel, copper and food would we need? How would all that impact business?”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Who would lose if everyone in the world led a decent life and every adult consumed between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day? Who would lose if everyone were consuming the right number of calories every day? Who would lose if everyone were immunized against immunizable diseases? Who would lose if all the immunizable diseases that afflict people were immunized against? Who would lose if we were to achieve universal immunization for all the people in the world? What would be the problem? Who would lose if all young people, children, accessed education to achieve literacy, numeracy and skills, as a minimum? Who would lose if all human beings had health units within a radius of 5 kilometres from where they live? Who would lose if all human beings had access to clean electricity, away from charcoal, firewood and dirty kerosene?”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“I congratulate His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lajčák on his election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-second session and assure him of Uganda’s support. We are confident that he will lead the Assembly effectively and successfully. I would also like to express our gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Peter Thomson for his leadership of the Assembly at its seventy-first session. I also pay tribute to His Excellency Secretary-General António Guterres for his personal dedication and commitment to the work of the United Nations. The theme for this session, “Focusing on people: Striving for peace and a decent life for all on a sustainable planet”, is very pertinent. I am happy this topic is being discussed. I have always wondered why the elites in the different countries of the world do not see its importance.”
2017-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 72 (2017)
“Hence, our East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community, the Economic Community of West African States and, ultimately, the common m+arket of the whole of Africa, as we agreed recently, in Kigali. These markets are taking us in the right direction. Remember that when I buy what is produced by your factories, I am supporting your prosperity; and when you buy what I produce, you are supporting my prosperity. Long live the SDGs. But, please, do not forget to add the bottlenecks that we observed here.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“In my dialect we say, “The one who shoots arrows at others should expect arrows to come his way”. Finally, our sixth bottleneck — the bottleneck of fragmented markets in Africa and possibly in other places — should also be addressed. It has eased its trade with China, with India, with the United States, with Russia, with Brazil and Indonesia, because they are markets of $1.3 billion, $1.2 billion, $150 million, $200 million and $200 million, respectively, because they are societies under one political authority each. We and the others that have fragmented markets must struggle to rectify this deficiency. In Africa, we are already moving forward.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Yet the recent growth through trade of China, India and so forth in their interaction with the United States of America, the European Union, Africa and so forth shows the power of the stimulus. Let the global body therefore understand and blacklist the pseudo-ideology of the sectarianism and chauvinism of groups. All the past mistakes and the present ones are linked to this problem. Imperialism, the slave trade, colonialism, neocolonialism, the ongoing sectarian conflicts in many parts of the world — all, in one way or another, spring from this pseudo-ideology. The fair and authentic ideology of being my brother’s keeper, as it says in the Book of Genesis — chapter 4, verse 9 — is the true antidote to this poison. Abandon all forms of chauvinism and the world will be safer for everybody.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“One can of course say that the idea of ideological disorientation is subsumed in SDG 16 — that of peace, justice and strong institutions. Nevertheless, there is no harm in singling out and highlighting this problem of the pseudo-ideology that exploits the identities of people — of religion, tribe, race, gender and so forth — and eclipses the interests of the people, such as balanced trade. That equal relationship between the producer of a good and the producer of a service and the buyer of the same, both in ancient and modern times, is the greatest stimulus for global prosperity. This, however, is many times eclipsed by the shallow promotion of the chauvinism of religion, tribe, race or gender, even when one’s religion mates, tribe mates and race mates are doing nothing or little for one’s prosperity.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“These are ideological disorientation; a weak State, especially the army, which needed restructuring; the suppression of the private sector; the underdevelopment of human resources, that is, a lack of education and health; the underdevelopment of infrastructure, that is, the railways, roads, electricity, telephones and piped water and so forth; a small internal market; the lack of industrialization; the underdevelopment of the services sector; the underdevelopment of agriculture and the attack on democracy. As the Assembly can see, there are two crucial bottlenecks that are missing in the SDGs. These are ideological disorientation, which for us is bottleneck number one, and market integration, which is bottleneck number six.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“There are 17 of them, and they are: to end poverty in all its forms everywhere, to end hunger, to ensure healthy lives, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, to achieve gender equality and so forth. I do not have to read out all 17 SDGs because representatives know them. All this is a different way of providing a prescription for the problems of underdevelopment. We are happy at last. The global agenda includes most of the ingredients necessary for growth and the transformation of societies, as happened in the past for those societies that pioneered the Industrial Revolution. In particular, the inclusion of energy on the list of SDGs is a departure from past global agendas. These SDGs fluctuate with many of our own 10 strategic bottlenecks.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Even in Africa, a continent with a lot of accumulated disadvantages, 414 million people have come out of poverty. In Uganda’s case, in 2004 56 per cent of its people were living in poverty. Today that figure is 19 per cent. It is hoped that by 2017, it will be reduced to 10 per cent. Is the world not a better place with the spread of affluence? Have not the old affluent societies and the new ones both benefited? The United States is today exporting goods and services to China worth $120 billion per year. The European Union is exporting goods and services to China worth $356 billion. Has not the spread of affluence benefited more people? The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) understood this very well.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“I would like to congratulate the President on his election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-first session. The theme for this session is “The Sustainable Development Goals: a universal push to transform our world”. This is a good topic. It adds another nail in the coffin of the old parasitic arrangement where only a small portion of humankind — those living in the United States of America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand — lived in affluence while the rest of the world lived in abject poverty. The reasoning then was that one could not be affluent without doing so at the expense of somebody else. This logic has now been challenged. Between 1981 and 2010, 380 million and 270 million people in China and India, respectively, came out of poverty.”
2016-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 71 (2016)
“Our advice to the United Nations system is therefore that, while it may be unavoidable to rely on external armies in dealing with particularly ugly situations, one should be wary of groups that seek external sponsorship instead of relying on their own internal energies and groups that seek to be puppets of external actors. Some very limited external solidarity may be necessary when oppressed people are fighting for survival and emancipation, if you are dealing with authentic patriotic groups. However, the United Nations system will not add any value if it is lured into situations where it is supporting puppets who have no legitimacy in the various respective situations or who are pursuing one pseudo-ideology or another. In that case the United Nations becomes part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“If you sow the pseudo-ideology of sectarianism, bad governance, corruption, flunkeyism, and so forth, you will harvest insecurity and the stunted growth of the State pillars, including the armed forces. Uganda is a country that has had a lot of problems, including losing 800,000 people between 1966 and 1986, who were killed extrajudicially by the various regimes. We have never, however, appealed for external help in dealing with the security problems of our country. We have always emphasized building our own capacity at the earliest opportunity. That has served us well. Uganda today has capable security forces that have ushered in peace throughout the whole country, for the first time in the past 500 years.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The healthy quantitative expansion of, for instance, a foetus in the womb of the mother should always result, after a due period of time, into the foetus metamorphosing into a baby who now breathes through the nose and feeds through the mouth instead of relying on the umbilical cord. Similarly, societies must grow not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. African societies, for instance, must grow from the pre-capitalist modes of production and from being producers of raw materials to middle-class and skilled working-class societies. I salute our own Honourable Sam Kutesa, who played a leading role in that historic effort at the level of the United Nations. On the issue of global peace, our experience in Uganda has been to go back to the Bible, which teaches that whatever a man sows, that is what he reaps.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“This convergence of diagnosis and prescription regarding global issues will, above all, assist in prioritizing the use of scarce resources, especially those under the control of international agencies. The tug-of-war as to what is more important, electricity or education, now comes to an end. It is clear that both, and more, are the sine qua non of socioeconomic transformation. Moreover, the use of the word “transformation” in the SDGs is most revealing. That is what we have been urging our partners to adopt instead of vague phrases like “sustainable development”. Sustainable development without the resultant transformation is like talking of quantitative growth without qualitative change. We have been pointing out that that is not what happens in nature.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Unlike past prescriptions that entailed mainly philanthropy and aid and spoke of social goals without talking of economic goals, and so forth, the SDGs that we adopted the other day (see resolution 70/1) talk about industrialization and added value, trade, investments and human-resource development in addition to the previously proposed remedies. Above all, the SDGs proclaim in bold letters the concept of universal prosperity for all societies, for the first time in human history. While it is amazing that such enlightened self- interest has taken so long to dawn on all of us, the old saying that “better late than never” appropriately comes to mind in this case.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“We do not have the time to lay out those two sets of factors that were responsible for that dichotomy in the human race between the developed and underdeveloped societies on the same planet in the same age. Yet, as if by a miracle, during the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly, the Member States finally agreed on the all-important SDGs — 17 of them. The convergence of analysis and solutions, of diagnosis and prescription, is a landmark in the history of humankind. It means that the international community now agrees with us in Uganda, we who have for long identified 10 strategic bottlenecks that have held Africa back from undergoing the necessary transformation to become first-world societies.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Yesterday, while chairing the United Nations Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), I quoted that portion of the Bible. Given the fact that the United Nations has been in existence for the past 70 years, one would have imagined that those fundamental rules of Christianity, which are also found in other religions, would have been clear to every member of the human family. Yet, unfortunately, that has not been the case. Until recently, the human race has been divided between a small group of affluent and prosperous societies on the one hand and a large number of underdeveloped societies on the other. The underdeveloped societies have been in that condition partly because of endogenous factors and also partly because of exogenous factors.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I congratulate you, Sir, on your election as President of the General Assembly at its seventieth session and assure you of Uganda’s support. We are confident that you will lead the Assembly effectively and successfully. I would also like to express our gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Sam Kutesa for his leadership of the Assembly at its sixty- ninth session. I also pay tribute to the Secretary- General, His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his personal dedication and commitment to the work of the United Nations. The theme for this session, “The United Nations at 70: the road ahead for peace, security and human rights”, is a very pertinent one. In the book of Matthew, Chapter 22, verses 37-38, the Bile tell us to “Love God with all your heart” and “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Together with our neighbours, we have integrated our markets in the East African Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. We also partner with others on common security solutions. Africa and the individual African countries are therefore becoming more credible partners with all serious actors beyond our shores. Uganda needs and welcomes investment, trade access, tourists and, in some cases, security partnerships that are approved by the African Union with our partners in the world, many of whom are Members of the United Nations.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“That pseudo-ideology has fuelled most of the conflicts in Africa. We are also witnessing the same pseudo-ideology causing havoc in the Middle East and North Africa. When uninformed outsiders link up with those pseudo-ideologists, the permutation is most tragic. Sectarian ideology is pseudo and bankrupt because it is at variance with the people’s real interests of symbiosis and the exchange of goods and services, as well as integration for mutual benefit. Only parasites revel in such schemes. That pseudo-ideology should be banished and treated with the contempt that it deserves. With regard to socioeconomic transformation, Uganda is busy building hard-surface roads, electricity networks, railways, information and communication technology networks, a universal education system and a pan-Ugandan health-care system.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“The middle class in Africa is now of the magnitude of 313 million people, and that has boosted the purchasing power of Africa to $2.5 trillion. That purchasing power is growing at the rate of 3.2 per cent per annum. That growth and expansion of the African gross domestic product and purchasing power has happened despite inadequate roads, inadequate railways, inadequate electricity, and so on. Once those strategic bottlenecks are addressed, the sky will be the limit as far as Africa’s potential is concerned. One bottleneck that has bedevilled Africa has been the espousing of the pseudo-ideology of religious or tribal sectarianism, as well as chauvinism vis-à-vis women. When President Obama was walking out, I met him at the door and told him that he had copied some of my statement.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“There was, for instance, the very- well-organized Kingdom of Kongo on the Atlantic coast at the time the first Portuguese explorer, Diego Cão, arrived there in 1483. The Kingdom covered parts of northern Angola, Cabinda, parts of the Republic of Congo and the western parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a consequence of the actions of colonialism, that polity, that Kingdom, declined and disintegrated. It is only now that the modern countries of that area are regenerating that portion of Africa. It is those distortions and the original endogenous weaknesses of Africa that the present generation of African leaders have been addressing. In many African countries, positive results are beginning to manifest themselves.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“Those 500 years witnessed great traumas inflicted on the African continent, including the slave trade, colonialism, neocolonialism, plunder, human haemorrhage and, in some cases, even genocide. Those traumas resulted in the haemorrhage of the population and the depopulation of the African continent to the extent that by 1900 the population of the whole of Africa was only 133 million people, while that of China, which is only one quarter of the land area of Africa, was 489,000 million people. In other words, by 1990, the population of the whole of Africa was only a quarter of that of China, in a land area four times larger. Such traumas were possible in Africa owing not only to internal weaknesses but also external factors. Foreign aggression caused serious distortions in African societies.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“First of all, I thank the General Assembly for electing His Excellency Mr. Sam Kutesa, our Minister for Foreign Affairs, as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. As the Assembly knows, the United Nations system needs reform to reflect the new needs and realities in the world today. Uganda will use the time of its presidency to make a small contribution towards the reform of the United Nations and its organs by pushing for the African agenda on that issue. Those reforms, as will be agreed by all of us, will strengthen the United Nations, not otherwise. Africa, Uganda included, is at long last emerging from the long night of decline that the continent has been through in the last 500 years — ever since 1472, when the Portuguese started encroaching on the African coastline.”
2014-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 69 (2014)
“With the resources from the oil and gas we discovered a few years ago, we will be able to fund all our infrastructure needs. The future is bright and our forward movement is irreversible.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Initially, as we struggled for minimal economic recovery, we had to depend on external funding. Although useful, that funding was limited, slow in coming, not always focused, and erratic. Although our economy succeeded in achieving an average annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent per annum over the past 20 years, we could have achieved much higher rates of growth, especially if we had had reliable funding for infrastructure, Now that we have a little bit of our own money, we are able to implement infrastructure projects much faster. Even without oil and gas, we were able to move much faster in terms of infrastructure development by relying on ourselves. Of course, additional external funding, if it is focused, sizeable and on time, can be very useful. Without a doubt, Uganda and much of Africa are moving forward robustly.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“The latest manifestation of arrogance is from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the elected leaders of Kenya. Many African countries supported the establishment of the Court because we abhor impunity. However, in a shallow, biased way, the ICC has continued to mishandle complex African issues. That is not acceptable. The ICC should stop. Our advice to it is from very capable actors who know what they are doing and who know what they are saying. Kenya is recovering. Let it recover. We know the origin of the mistakes of the past. The ICC way is not the right one for handling those mistakes. In our struggle for socioeconomic transformation, our biggest problem has been funding. The small modern colonial economy of Uganda was destroyed by Idi Amin.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Where there is a need to fight for freedom, oppressed people can fight for themselves. They do not have to be sponsored by external forces. Those who seek external sponsorship as their primary aim are suspect, to say the least. Still on the issue of global partnership, I cannot fail to stress our anger vis-à-vis actors who are beginning to make it a habit to ignore African Union positions on African matters. One of our slogans in the decolonization struggle was “Africa for the Africans”. Some people seem to think that that was an empty slogan. They are wrong. Although the patriotic forces have been taken by surprise by this renewed arrogance by the old mistake-makers, they will react appropriately to protect Africa from hegemony.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (The Holy Bible, Matthew 7:16-20) A good system will prove its superiority by example. The Book of Matthew also states: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (ibid., Matthew 5:16) We do not have to create new global tensions in order to deal with criminals. Where there is a need for international action, regional and global consensus should be sought so that we unite the many to defeat the few and isolate the enemy to the maximum, as the late Chairman Mao Zedong used to say.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“We have been working on Goal 8, developing a global partnership for development, first and foremost by working for economic and political integration in Africa and for market access to the rest of the world on the basis of mutual advantage. The process of market integration in Africa has already started in the form of the East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community, the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic Community of Central African States. As part of the global partnership, we should be very careful not to lose the easing in global tensions that came with the end of the Cold War. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus says : “ By their their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“In spite of the fact that a number of mistakes were made by some of our actors, Uganda will have achieved the following MDGs by 2015. First, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger — already achieved; second, achieve universal primary education — already achieved; third, promote gender equality — already achieved; fourth, reduce child mortality — already achieved; fifth, improve maternal health — achieving this one has been slow to be achieved because of mistakes on our side; sixth, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases — we are on track to achieve this, except as concerns new AIDS infections, which have increased slightly; seventh, ensure environmental sustainability by increasing the electrification of the economy, so as to stop the cutting of forests for firewood and for primitive agriculture by modernizing agriculture and shifting a greater portion of the population towards industry, away from agriculture.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Eighth, the additional mistake was made of interfering with the private sector, influenced by an incorrect analysis of the national interest. Was the private sector causing the national economy to haemorrhage by repatriating dividends, or was it creating an infusion of fresh money and knowledge and expanding the size of the economy? Fortunately, that mistake has been corrected in Uganda and in much of Africa. Those are the bottlenecks that directly affected the rate of socioeconomic transformation. I do not wish to go into the political bottlenecks here. In Uganda, therefore, we were clear about all of those from the very beginning. It was not possible to talk of the MDGs sustainably without talking about those strategic bottlenecks. You could not sustainably base yourself on donor support to achieve the MDGs.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“One cannot sustainably produce if sufficient numbers of people do not buy one’s goods. Sixth, a lack of industrialization and a failure to modernize services meant that we continued to export raw materials at 10 per cent or less of the final value of the final product, thereby losing money and jobs to the outside world. The lack of modern services meant that we could not attract tourists and had to import services from outside in the form of professional and medical services, inter alia, in addition to jobs not being created. Seventh, the failure to modernize agriculture inhibits the earning capacity of the affected portions of the population and the country, stunts job creation and affects food security.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“The third is inadequate infrastructure, including inadequate electricity, lack of roads, lack of a railway system, lack of information and communications technology infrastructure, and so on. All of this means high costs for doing business in a given country. That scares away business, and without business there can be no employment, no production of goods and services and no expansion of the tax base. It is a vicious circle. The fourth bottleneck relates to human resources that are undeveloped on account of lack of education and poor health. An illiterate and unhealthy population cannot be the agent of socioeconomic transformation. The fifth is the issue of small internal markets resulting from the colonial balkanization of Africa. Those had to be worked on through regional market integration.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Our old society of traditional Africa had and has to undergo socioeconomic metamorphosis, just like the insects do, taking on new forms of life — egg, caterpillar, pupa, adult butterfly or other insect, and so on — of the same organism. That means fewer people in agriculture than in industry and services, more people in urban centres than in rural areas, no illiteracy, and modern agriculture rather than subsistence traditional agriculture or uneconomic colonial cash crops that bring in little for the affected families. I hope that no one had imagined that we could sustainably attain the MDGs while maintaining a backward economy. We in Uganda discovered the following bottlenecks to socioeconomic transformation. The first is ideological disorientation. The second is a weak State — no army and a weak police, judiciary and civil service.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“In the year 2000, we met here and agreed on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for 2015. They are: Goal 1, the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; Goal 2, achieving universal primary education; Goal 3, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women; Goal 4, reducing child mortality; Goal 5, improving maternal health; Goal 6, combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; Goal 7, ensuring environmental sustainability; and Goal 8, developing a global partnership for development. As we can see, they cannot be sustainably achieved unless we achieve socioeconomic transformation. That means building a new society comprised of the middle class and the skilled working class out of the pre-capitalist societies that characterize underdeveloped countries.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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 10-54965 30 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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“In the case of Uganda and many other African countries, we have a double challenge: first, the struggle to transform our economies from a pre-industrial to a modern state; secondly, to cope with the problems caused by others, such as the present global financial crisis and environmental degradation. There are, however, a few questions I keep asking myself. Is the present profligacy of some of the developed countries sustainable if we all join in that lifestyle? Or was it only possible when a tiny minority of humanity was enjoying affluence? Is there a need for a more rational modern lifestyle? The need for dialogue among civilizations is long overdue. That dialogue could help us deal with some of the headaches and dilemmas confronted by humanity.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Thus, Uganda’s response to the global crisis has been fair, because of regional trade. It would have been fairer if we had already dealt with the three infrastructure elements I have talked about: roads, electricity and railways. This would have enabled us to lower the costs of doing business in Uganda and, thus, increase the profitability of enterprises. Africa has great potential for growth that is not tapped. The current global crisis was caused by certain laxities in the management of some of the economies of the world. Those laxities need to be rectified through multilateral action, as some heads of State have already noted. We need to stop money-laundering and strengthen regulation. Multilateral action would also be welcome in unlocking the dormant potential of Africa.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)