Lessons for governance reform from Uganda

Uganda is one of Africa’s success stories, having achieved economic growth, a reduction in poverty and political stability following years of civil war. Much of this success was accompanied by a range of reforms to state institutions. What can be learnt from the Ugandan experience for other developing countries hoping for successful governance reform?

A discussion paper from the Institute of Development Studies, UK, examines the how governance reforms in Uganda were implemented, focusing on three cases: the civilservice, the administration of taxes, and anti-corruption measures. Thegovernance reforms were mainly designed to improve the quality of public goodsand services through changes in how government organisations and officialsworked.

Reforms in all three areas followed a similar path intheir implementation and achieved some initial success. Uganda’s Civil Service Reform Programme in the 1990s wasamong the most successful in sub-Saharan Africa. It was able to reduce the size of the military andcut down the number of ministries. The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)established in 1991 was successful in increasing tax revenues.  The government also strengthened a numberexisting institutions and created new ones to curb corruption.

This success is normally attributed to PresidentMuseveni’s initial commitment to the reforms. However, the progress is nowbeing reversed as the bureaucracy is once again expanding, tax revenues havefallen and corruption in government bodies such as the URA has increased. When thePresident’s attention turned to other priorities, such as the war in the northand public service delivery, governance reform measures were neglected.

The research finds that:

• reforms initiallybenefited from committed political leaders supported by capable civil servantsacting independently from organised interest groups
• political supportfor reforms was partly in response to donors’ expectations, especially as manyhad funded the reform initiatives
• the reform systemgave power to a group of people with personal or family ties to the President:  resurgence of ‘patrimonial politics’undermined the progress of reforms and weakened state institutions.

Key lessons from the Ugandan experience include:

• Political compulsions and incentives play a critical role indetermining the success of governance reforms: they will continue only ifthere is a strong and continued political pay-off for politicians.
• Government agencies that implement reforms are vulnerable to beingpolitically manipulated, despite being autonomous.

The actions of political leaders, who have focusedmore on staying in power than achieving development objectives, has meantUganda has failed to sustain its initial successes gained through governancereforms. To overcome this, the following may be needed:

• a more active andengaged civil society to increase the accountability of political leaders andcivil servants
• a morecompetitive party system to create opportunities for debate and reform, andcurb patrimonial politics
• planning governancereforms over an extended time period so that they are sustainable beyond thepersonal commitment of political leaders
• restoring thelegitimacy of state institutions and strengthening them, although this could bea major challenge with increased political competition.