CIAO DATE: 03/2012
February 2012
Danish Institute for International Studies
Why and when do ruling elite take initiatives to promote production in Africa? This working paper (from the research project on Elites Production and Poverty, EPP) examines the politics of Uganda’s dairy sector. This sector is important because, in contrast to many other productive sectors in Africa, it has grown quite substantially in the last two decades. The main reason for the growth is that the Museveni government needed to build support coalitions when it came to power in 1986. The government took a number of early initiatives to rehabilitate the dairy infrastructure in southwestern Uganda, where the ruling elite came from and whose support it needed. As the government later implemented structural adjustment programs and the sector was liberalized, milk production grew most in the southwestern area. Dairy farmers organized and so did dairy traders, and a relatively competent Dairy Development Authority was set up which was able to bargain with the producer organizations and achieve their cooperation in implementing regulatory initiatives. In order to explain policy initiatives and their implementation in the dairy sector in Uganda, we thus need to understand how ruling elites remain in power. In the dairy case, promoting the sector helped the ruling elite remain in power.
Resource link: Coalition-driven initiatives in the Ugandan dairy sector: Elites, conflict, and bargaining [PDF] - 1.6M