PROF. VINCENT BAGIRE
I am writing this piece as Uganda reflects on the announcement by the World Bank to suspend further financial aid and loans. This was purportedly due to the people of Uganda standing out against the homosexuality behaviours. The World Bank (WB) announcement comes barely a few months after other bilateral engagements with Uganda were also threatened, albeit without action yet. I look at this from a management perspective at organizational and societal levels. I will use the net-work lens to put face to the issues surrounding this. The issue of loans or financial support bounds into a network of factors, people and nations at large. Management is a network.
Certainly, WB decision comes after their own network of consultations. Equally, Uganda will face it off with a network of consultations. Development is a network. Economists will use the models of flow of resources among nations. The world lives on comparative advantages. At organization level, when one is entrusted with the authority to manage, he does not manage on his own; one action lends another to foster performance. Therefore, the decision of WB is not in isolation of the global network. Any single decision of that nature has ramifications across the network of countries that survive under the WB financial system.
The same will happen should Uganda start to get a heavy pinch of the WB decision. Simple management logic. We have known today the global concern with climate change. The call for action is a network issue. So, as economists, to derive models for Uganda’s survival without WB support, I call for action at a management level within government ministries, departments and agencies; among the private sector and civil society.
Our problem in Uganda is management! It is a network of action that will insulate the country against the short-term and medium-term effects. The long-term effects, from my strategic analysis will not arise. The situation will have normalized. The powers that are should therefore institutionalize good management practices of the resources that we have. The WB is a giant somewhere in time and space. So are other possible funders. We must reconfigure our priorities and strategic direction as a nation. And this should be done in a network of action, aware of the precarious situation we are in. Possibly, the decision is a divine hard path to get us back to patriotism, to use funds for the public good. For once, than ever before, we must shoulder this with nationalism.
Many analysts are calling for a speedy end to corruption, excesses in government spending, rationalization of priorities, strengthening institutions, taking right and timely decisions and sparkling political leadership at all levels. We must reconstruct our moral fabric; rebuild efficiency in all processes of public nature. The government of Uganda has seemingly enough financial capacity to survive; if only we use the resources in a manner that fits national aspirations. The cultural destiny that we are protecting by that law, which has caused trigger across the world is a network of values. As Christian leaders, let us talk about that law in parents’ meetings in schools and in our Church gatherings.
May we be sounding clocks for a network of voices for rational behaviour as a nation, for a renewal of basic morals to the public interest. Finally, by way, it will not be long before the WB realizes that their decision has rewinding ramifications, within our friends and their network. They will revert, albeit, in a modified way, with new conditions and new packages. The world is itself a network. May the Holy Spirit guide us to manage this withdraw to our advantage.
The Author is a member of the Episcopal Commission for the Laity and Professor of Management at Makerere University Business School. Email:vbagire@mubs.ac.ug
