Uganda / Needs more productive jobs for faster development

Jobs are central to development because they affect living conditions, determine the pace of economic transformation and foster social cohesion. This was the key message of the World Bank’s World Development Report of 2012. It would be hard for Uganda to develop if the bulk of the labour force remains stuck in low productivity employment. That is the challenge that the World Bank’s second Economic Update on Uganda seeks to address.

Slated to be launched on tomorrow, the Update takes stock of the economy and proposes solutions for identified challenges to inclusive development. Its analysis suggests that despite a difficult past five years, the renewed macro-stability is providing a foundation for faster economic growth.

Uganda has recovered from a lowly growth rate of 3.4 per cent during the last financial year to about 5.0 per cent, which is expected to continue into the medium term, if government sustains prudent monetary and fiscal policies to remove binding constraints, and manages exogenous shocks that may arise from climate change, volatile import and export prices, regional instability, and other forms of uncertainty. This can bring back robust historical average growth rates of seven per cent. The sectors that are driving this growth have not been important sources of employment, leaving the bulk of the labour force to be employed in low value subsistence agriculture and small low value non-agricultural enterprises.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via For faster development, we need more productive jobs – Commentary – monitor.co.ug.