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OPINION
By Hadijah Namyalo Uzeiye
Towards the end of last month, the global economic body, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), upgraded its global growth forecast, commonly known as the World Economic Outlook.
IMF defines the World Economic Outlook as a survey of prospects and policies by its staff, usually published twice a year, with updates in between.
The outlook presents analyses and projections of the world economy in the near and medium term, which are vital elements of the IMF’s monitoring of economic developments and policies in its member countries and of the global economic system.
Following the founding of the IMF and World Bank, arising from the Bretton Woods meeting in 1944, Uganda became a member of the IMF in the post-independence period on September 27, 1963.
Uganda is, therefore, among the 190 countries under IMF that work in harmony together to try to stabilise the global economy.
Since Uganda became a member, the IMF has been extending an advice-giving responsibility on the economic trajectory of Uganda. It carried on the same role when the National Resistance Movement (NRM) seized state power in January 1986. And at the time the NRM took over the country’s leadership, IMF statistics showed that our country was in a poor economic state.
As President Yoweri Museveni keeps reminding us, Uganda’s economy then was an enclave economy dependent only on cotton, coffee, copper, tobacco, tea and tourism.
The NRM leadership's strategic policies rescued the economy through diversification. Besides introducing more crops on market, the NRM Government gave life to other economic sectors like fishing, milk production and mining.
In this year’s State of the Nation Address, President Museveni assured the country that his government will increase the size of Uganda’s economy to $500 billion by the year 2040. This will be achieved as a result of the strategy his government has instituted, anchored on four sectors: agro-industrialisation, mineral development, including oil and gas, science, tourism development, technology and innovation.
In the particular case of tourism, the president holds that its value chain has a $50b potential.
In light of the strong foundation the NRM government laid for the country’s economy, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is $1,263. And Uganda is, therefore, on a quick march to upper-middle-income status.
Such steady growth attained led the IMF to rank Uganda as the seventh fastest-growing economy in the world.
Despite the global challenges, in its recent upgraded global growth forecast, the IMF predicts a stronger global economic growth that it had forecast in April. It forecasts global growth of 3% in 2025 and 3.1% in 2026, up attributed to US government's decision to soften on tariffs on goods.
The good news is that in the IMF forecast, Uganda records impressive growth figures. Already, the ministry of finance had projected in this year’s budget speech that Uganda’s GDP growth will be at 6.3% in 2025/2026 and 7% in 2026/2027. Besides, the Uganda shilling has been appreciating by 4% year-on-year, something which led to the IMF to declare the Uganda Shilling as the most stable currency in Africa. Its stability is attributed to strong export receipts, foreign direct investment and tourism earnings. Now that the IMF global economic forecast is positive, let us support NRM Government’s economic agenda so that the size of Uganda’s economy increases to $500b by the year 2040.
The writer is a senior presidential adviser, political affairs, Office of the National Chairperson/national co-ordinator Bazzukulu