Ugandan Paper Challenges State Over Country’s Population

Text of editorial entitled “Will Uganda be UK or Ethiopia?” published by Ugandan newspaper The New Vision web site on 15 September

Uganda’s population is growing by one million per year, according to the Uganda Population Secretariat. By 2025, Uganda’s population will double to around 54m.

There is an argument that a larger population means a larger market, and thereby greater wealth. But will Uganda’s wealth in 2025 be closer to that of the UK (population today 55m and stable), or Ethiopia (population today 60m and growing)?

Ethiopia and the UK have roughly the same population size but Ethiopia is desperately poor and the UK is very rich. There is no direct correlation between population size and national wealth. The infrastructure in Uganda is already overloaded because of the growing population. Schools and health services are stretched to bursting point and power supply is grossly inadequate. There is intense land pressure in many parts of the country although it is also true that most arable land is inefficiently utilized.

There is an argument that population will naturally stabilize at an optimal point. Already it is clear that urban and middle class families are having fewer children because of the expense. But the still high reproductive rate of poor and rural families pushes the average number of children per woman up to seven. That’s why Uganda has the highest population growth rate in the world after Haiti and Angola.

Even when Uganda’s population hits 50m, this will still be a tiny market compared to the global market of six billion people. It will not be enough to give Ugandan manufacturers critical mass. It would be better to build wealth in Uganda by creating a well-educated, well-endowed population that could generate both foreign and domestic investment by providing skilled labour at globally competitive rates.

This will not be possible with uncontrolled and rampant population growth.

We are heading in the direction of Ethiopia but we should be going in the direction of the UK.