When journalists miss the point

President Museveni keeps on opening roads at every opportunity. But even for him the overall ‘total infrastructure context’ of the Presidential ‘infrastructure campaign’ is lost in the lack of interest by a media consumed by the politics of ‘outing’ him from State House. There is no analysis to help the general public to make the decision on the replacement.

Like him or not President Museveni at the outset and a long time ago promised Ugandans a ‘mixed economy’. That he was and distracted derailed by the proponents of the Washington Consensus’ – now in disarray is another matter.

The Africa Development Bank Africa Report 2015 which was launched in early September in Kampala also did not get the attention and analysis it deserved and was poorly covered by the media.

For number of good domestic policy reasons, the ADB should be requested to follow the Africa Report 2015 with a stakeholder meeting of policy makers.

The report makes a very useful and pertinent analysis of how African economies can prepare for global and domestic changes, and its particular theme of ‘Regional Development and Spatial Inclusion’. Spatial inclusion refers to the challenge of regional disparities in development within an economy such as Uganda.

A quick check of the questions raised at the ADB Africa Report 2015 event shows that most were off the cuff and without advance preparation or research. Asking the right questions at the right time and some prior preparation work in developing the questions is very important. Therefore, advance preparation should be a requirement for all participants in any post-Africa Report 2015 Country stakeholder meeting.

The cerebral BoU Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende expertly fended off many of the mundane questions revolving around the negative exchange rate and with ready-made answer to the long running and growing fiscal deficit – cut expenditure. The Governors knowledge and experience was not utilised.

The event became a demonstration and reflection of our celebrated and growing ability to obfuscate and relegate important but difficult imperatives to the periphery and instead frontload mundane but ‘exciting’ matters and events of the day and actually present them in tabloid form in the media.

The Launch of the ADB Africa Report 2015 was also  a perfect opportunity for policy makers in Uganda to announce two important milestones  – first the ‘demise ’ of the PRSP driven Millennium Development Goals -MDGs , and second, the birth in Addis Ababa  of the Domestic Direct Investment (DDI) driven Sustainable Development Goals – the SDGs . This did not happen. The result is that many important stakeholders in Uganda are still talking about the MDGs and do not have a clue about the SDGs .The MDG’s are out.

The East African industrialists are already into the spirit of the SDGs. In early September, the Inaugural East Africa Manufacturing Business Summit was convened by the EAC Secretariat at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort in Kampala. It   brought together manufacturers, business leaders, and the regional government leaders policy champions.

Opened by Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, it was well attended by regional players and coincided perfectly with the ADB Africa Report 2015 theme of ‘Regional Development and Spatial Inclusion’.

The industrialists of the region are on to something – they are looking for medium to long term policy formulations which harmonise and integrate industrial activity in the region. It is a giant step from the days when industrialists would go to Arusha just to block harmonisation of tariffs and the removal of trade barriers. Once again the media and pundits hardly recognised the singular importance of this event.

So what is new?

The premise of the SDGs is that a multi–sectoral, place-based and participatory development strategy will unlock potential in the population through job creation, strengthen the domestic market, and protect the domestic ecosystems of plant species, mammals and bird species, natural resources and arable land. These SDG Imperatives might sound boring and undeserving of headlines; however, they are part and parcel of the recipe for the social and economic transformation that nations seek.

Of particular interest is the SDG focus on the two themes of Regional Development and Spatial Inclusion. These are areas which should have captured the attention of the media.

The difference between the SDGs and the MDGs is that the MDGs and its associated PRSP strategies had little room for the jobs imperative and the need to grow the domestic market. The MDGs main preoccupation has been with aid driven measures of reducing poverty through the various permutations of the stabilisation measures.

While the SDGs are universal and based on the notion that countries worldwide – including sub-Saharan Africa can get out of poverty through sectoral place-based and participatory development strategies, the MDGs were more or less tailor made for African countries who were deemed never to be able graduate from the life support of stabilisation measures into sustained job creating GDP growth rates.

The other difference is the SDG’s emphasis on country specific ends – without trying to pontificate on country strategy. Most will recall that the MDG’s prescribe a one-size-fit-all PRSP formulation for all sub-Saharan Africa countries.

Regarding the launch of the Automatic Trading System–ATS which also came with the August Quarter, it would be good for the media to track the ATS induced-spike in trading volumes. In fact the USE All Share Index is expected continue in a positive direction towards the end of the year when dividend activity will slow down the market.

The biggest question perhaps is who in the media is tracking the All Share Index – and for that matter the global price of oil. It should be remembered that oil is expected to be a key driver in the transformation of the Uganda economy.

****

*Dr Geoffrey A Onegi-Obel  is the Founder and a  Director of the Uganda Securities Exchange Ltd where he is working on a new generation of products . A pioneer investment banker in Uganda, he has been a Director of Standard Chartered Bank and Senior Presidential Adviser to President Museveni. He can be reached at Onegi_Obel@use.or.ug