Uganda Technology & Management University (UTAMU)

Introduction: Malaria is a killer disease in the tropical environment; artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) play a central role in treating malaria. Thus, the supply and presence of ACT drugs in hospitals are a key feature in the fight against malaria. Supply chain management literature has focused on the private sector, and less attention has been paid to the public sector, especially hospitals. Aim: This study uses an interdisciplinary lens in investigating how to boost the supply and distribution of ACTs to save lives in low-income countries, specifically in Uganda. Methodology: The study adopted a quantitative research design using a questionnaire as the data collection instrument. Of the 440-population size, 304 of the sample population participated in the study. The model was estimated using structural equation modeling (SEM) to establish the causal relationship among the variables. Results: From the SEM analysis, all the hypotheses were significant at p < 0.05. The availability of ACTs is strongly affected by strategic dimensions (0.612), followed by operation dimensions (0.257); strategic determinants significantly affect operational determinants by a magnitude of 0.599. The indirect influence of the strategic determinants via operational determinants on the availability of ACTs is not significant. Overall, the factors explained 63.9% of the observed variance in the availability of ACTs, and the ACT availability can be predicted as follows: ACT availability = 0.612 × strategic determinants + 0.256 × operation determinants. Top management commitment and organizational responsiveness are among the items that positively affect the availability of ACTs. Conclusion: Strategically, hospital management should invest in cheap technology and software to minimize the unavailability of medicines. Our research suggests that strategic and operational determinants should be integrated into the hospitals' core business and implemented by the top management. The article contributes to theoretical and policy direction in the public sector medicine supply chain, specifically in public hospitals.

This study is designed to assess the impact of household electricity access on labour market outcomes in Uganda. The quasi-experimental method is applied on a sample of 28,035 households, divided into two counterfactual of treatment (n=8,925) and control (n=19,110) groups. Results strongly show that access to electricity significantly increases wages while decreasing the time spent at work. Specifically, the average wage of the households with access to electricity increased by 155%, 124% and 154% with the Kernel Matching (KM), Nearest-Neighbor Matching (NNM) and Radius Matching (RM) technique, respectively. The average job duration of households with electricity access decreased by 1.34%, 2.01% and 2.5% with KM, NNM and RM technique, respectively. It is recommended that the government of Uganda should increase electricity generation coverage through alternative sources as renewable and nuclear energy and improve the quality of existing energy infrastructures. JEL codes: C13, C31

The study integrates ensemble learning into a task of classifying if a news article is on food insecurity or not. Similarity algorithms were exploited to imitate human cognition, an innovation to enhance performance. Four out of six classifiers generated performance improvement with the innovation. Articles on food insecurity identified with best classifier were generated into trends which were comparable with official trends. This paper provides information useful to stake holders in taking appropriate action depending on prevailing conditions of food insecurity. Two suggestions are put forth to promote performance: (1) using articles aggregated from several news media and (2) blending more classifiers in an ensemble.

TReND is a volunteer-scientist run charity dedicated to promoting research and education on the African continent. Focusing on neuroscience, we discuss approaches to address some of the factors that currently stifle Africa’s scientific development and our experience in implementing them.

Background: Private Universities (PUs) have existed in Uganda since the 1990s during the time when higher education was privatised due to the high demand for higher education. However, this undermined the quality of higher education in many ways because issues like enrolling students who do not qualify to join universities and recruiting academic staff that do not qualify among others hinder the quality of the teaching and learning in these PUs. The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), an institute established under Act of Parliament No. 15 of 2011 to implement the University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act of Parliament 2001, is the regulator body of higher education in Uganda. The mandate of the NCHE includes among others: to regulate, to accredit and to ensure that higher education institutions effectively deliver quality, relevant and standard education to the society. This is through the drafting of the quality assurance framework composed of two core components: the regulatory component at the NCHE level and the institutional component at each individual university level. Aim: The general objective of the study was to investigate determinants of the quality of the academic staff specifically focusing on the academic staff recruitment, development, promotion and dismissal. Setting: The study used the total quality management theory to explain the quality of teaching and learning processes in PUs in Uganda. Methods: The study adopted descriptive and case study designs where data was collected through interviews and observation methods. Results: The study found that PUs have the academic recruitment, promotion, dismissal and development policies that govern their management. Conclusion: Although the policies exist, their enforcement, monitoring and evaluation are weak thus affecting the quality and output of education.

Social media platforms have transformed the way we live and work. These platforms have opened up new opportunities for service provisioning and business models. Therefore, this paper presents findings of how leading Ugandan Universities are integrating social media in the teaching and learning processes. The researchers adopted a multi-methodology research approach which involved; collecting, analysing and integrating quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus group discussions and interviews) research methods. A total of 300 respondents were targeted (students and lecturers) of which 250 responded (196 male and 54 female). The respondents from Makerere University, Uganda technology and Management University (UTAMU) and Makerere University Business School. The results of the study indicated that majority (94.8%) of the respondents use WhatsApp, 86.5% Facebook, 82.1% YouTube, 53.8% Twitter, 39.8% Instagram and 9.2% snapchat. It was observed that 225 about 91.1% of student’s use social media for learning purposes. A total of 238 respondents use smartphones to access social media. While majority of students on social media platforms use these platforms for learning purposes, majority of lecturers (37.6%) never engage students on social media. Therefore, there is a mismatch on social media usage between students and lectures and this calls for the development of social media policies at universities to promote and guide the integration of these platforms in the teaching and learning processes.

Although many countries in the world including Uganda witnessed high rates of economic growth in the last three decades, the strong growth has failed to holistically deliver the expected prosperity. Amidst Uganda's strong growth of about 7% per annum, of the recent decades, poverty, unemployment and inequality have remained pervasive especially in the rural areas; an indication that the growth process has not been pro-poor and inclusive of the deprived. Agriculture which is the sector employing majority of Uganda's poor has also not developed much; within the same period the sector grew at an average rate of 2% per annum and its productivity has remained considerably low. This chapter reviews the trending conception of inclusive economic growth, and its relevance to Uganda's development process. In its final section, the chapter assesses the factors that affect agricultural productivity and it discusses the most effective means of raising productivity in order to make the growth process of the country more broad-base, pro-poor and inclusive.

Data mining algorithms can be applied to extract useful patterns from social media conversations to monitor disasters such as tsunami, earth quakes and nuclear power accidents. While food insecurity has persistently remained a world concern, its monitoring with this strategy has received limited attention. In attempt to address this concern, UN Global Pulse demonstrated that tweets reporting food prices from Indonesians can aid in predicting actual food price increase. For regions like Kenya and Uganda where use of tweets is considered low, this option can be problematic. Using Uganda as a case study, this study takes an alternative of using tweets from all over the world with mentions of; (1) uganda +food, (2) uganda + hunger, and (3) uganda + famine for years 2014, 2015 and 2016. The study however utilized tweets on food insecurity instead of tweets on food prices. In the first step, five data mining algorithms (D-tree, SVM, KNN, Neural Networks and N-Bayes) were trained to identify tweets conversations on food insecurity. Algorithmic performance were found comparable with human labeled tweet on the same subject. In step two, tweets reporting food insecurity were generated into trends. Comparing with trends from Uganda Bureau of Statistics, promising findings have been obtained with correlation coefficients of 0.56 and 0.37 for years 2015 and 2016 respectively. The study provides a strategy to generate information about food insecurity for stakeholders such as World Food Program in Uganda for mitigation action or further investigation depending on the situation. To improve performance, future work can; (1) aggregate tweets with other datasets, (2) ensemble algorithms, and (3) apply unexplored algorithms.

Since the 1970s, the Batwa ethnic minority group has been considered as a less superior group of human beings. They were forcefully evicted from the forest around Echuya Forest Reserve in Kisoro and Kabale districts of South-Western Uganda. The Batwa in Uganda are one of the most defenceless (vulnerable), marginalised, voiceless (powerless) and endangered ethnic minority group in the districts they live in. In turn, their civic and political rights (the right to vote and the right to be voted) in local council (LC) elections have been ignored partly because of poor sensitisation to and awareness of the Batwa people by all stakeholders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the civic and political rights of the Batwa people in Uganda. The key questions to be addressed include: 1. Is the Batwa ethnic minority group aware of the right to vote in Local Council 1 elections in the communities? 2. Is the Batwa ethnic minority group aware of the right to be voted for in Local Council 1 elections in their communities?

Background: The need for evidence-based decision-making scaled up the need for monitoring and evaluation systems in Africa. The education sector has received increasing scrutiny, owing to its centrality in promoting the national agenda of countries. The higher education sub-sector has expanded in its drive to increase accessibility, albeit with numerous challenges and doubts, especially about the quality of education. Numerous evaluations in this sub-sector in Uganda have been carried out, but their results have not been used for effective decision-making. In this regard, the non-utilisation trend of evaluation findings is attributable to the design of the institutions where these evaluations are carried out.Objectives: The study examined the relationship between institutional design (procedural rules, evaluation processes and institutional capacity) and utilisation of evaluation results at Kyambogo University.Methodology: This was a cross-sectional survey involving a sample of 118 respondents whose views were obtained through the use of questionnaires and key informant interviews triangulated with documentary analysis.Results: The study found that procedural rules, evaluation processes and evaluation capacity had a positive (0.459, 0.486 and 0.765, respectively) and a statistically significant (sig. = 0.000) effect on utilisation of evaluation results. This means that the dimensions of institutional design were important predictors of utilisation of evaluation results by a public sector agency.Conclusion: Strengthening of the evaluation competences and capacity of the university by empowering the Directorate of Planning and Development to coordinate and harmonise all evaluations and be charged with the follow-up of utilisation of the results is an emerging recommendation from this study.

Over the past few decades, East African countries have made tremendous economic, social, and political progress and are seeking to consolidate this growth with the formation of the East African Community (EAC) . The Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in Kenya’s capital Nairobi in July 2015 highlighted the competitiveness of local firms in the region as having the potential to contribute to high value-added activities through innovation and entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, there are general concerns as to whether local firms can maintain their competitive advantages in the new environment of economic integration especially with the increasing entry of more resource-endowed players from abroad. This conceptual chapter explores the capacity of local firms to maintain their competitive edge in the current environment by either occupying low-cost positions or by becoming differentiators. Specifically, the chapter presents arguments in support of the differentiation strategies among fledgling manufacturing local firms. While recognizing the limitations of local firms along this path, the chapter identifies areas from previous research which address the question of upgrading firms from large emerging-market economies such as China, India, and Brazil to suggest possible lessons that can guide policy and research aimed at helping local firms to be successful differentiators.

Although many countries in the world including Uganda witnessed high rates of economic growth in the last three decades, the strong growth has failed to holistically deliver the expected prosperity. Amidst Uganda's strong growth of about 7% per annum, of the recent decades, poverty, unemployment and inequality have remained pervasive especially in the rural areas; an indication that the growth process has not been pro-poor and inclusive of the deprived. Agriculture which is the sector employing majority of Uganda's poor has also not developed much; within the same period the sector grew at an average rate of 2% per annum and its productivity has remained considerably low. This chapter reviews the trending conception of inclusive economic growth, and its relevance to Uganda's development process. In its final section, the chapter assesses the factors that affect agricultural productivity and it discusses the most effective means of raising productivity in order to make the growth process of the country more broad-base, pro-poor and inclusive.

The general objective of the study was to examine effectiveness of the role of public sector monitoring and evaluation in promoting good governance in Uganda, with a focus on Ministry of Local Government. Specifically, the study sought to: examine out how effective role of M&E accountability, M&E Management Decision, M&E Organisational learning in promoting good governance and draw lessons from practice, and provide a recommendation to better inform the implementation strategy of M&E in the Ministry of Local Government. A case study design was used and both qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques were employed. The respondents comprised of staff of the Ministry of Local Government and Office of the Prime Minister. Quantitative data was analysed using correlation and percentages while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The study revealed that M&E accountability, M&E management decision and M&E organisation learning had significant role in promoting good governance in the Ministry of Local Government. It was therefore concluded that M&E enhanced accountability, management decision and organisation learning and promoted good governance. The study recommended that M&E should not only be tied to nominal compliance but should support evidence-based decision making. M&E should be properly institutionalised, funded and located so as to mediate policy process, planning and service delivery.

Environmental management is increasingly becoming an important topic of discussion in the business world today. Stakeholders as well as policymakers are demanding more accountability from companies in relation to their effects on the environment. In fact, putting the environment at the heart of a company’s marketing drive has become a popular strategy as companies search for ways to achieve competitive advantages in the currently dynamic business landscape. This paper addresses these issues in a rarely studied context. Specifically, it documents empirical evidence on the nature of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adopting environmentally friendly manufacturing practices in a developing-country context where firms have a weak resource base and operate in a poor regulatory regime. By focusing on SMEs as opposed to the conventional focus on large corporations, and using a developing-country context, this paper attempts to contribute to extant literature by uncovering additional facets of the current topic with potential significant implications for business practice and public policy.

Food insecurity is a global challenge affecting millions of people especially those from least developed regions. Famine predictions are being carried out to estimate when shortage of food is most likely to happen. The traditional data sets such as house hold information, price trends, crop production trends and biophysical data used for predicting food insecurity are both labor intensive and expensive to acquire. Current trends are towards harnessing big data to study various phenomena such sentiment analysis and stock markets. Big data is said to be easier to obtain than traditional datasets. This study shows that phone messages archives and telephone conversations as big datasets are potential for predicting food crisis. This is timely with the current situation of massive penetration of mobile technology and the necessary data can be gathered to foster studies such as this. Computation techniques such as Naïve Bayes, Artificial Networks and Support Vector Machines are prospective candidates in this strategy. If the strategy is to work in a nation like Uganda, areas of concern have been highlighted. Future work points at exploring this approach experimentally.

Food insecurity is a global challenge affecting millions of people especially those from least developed regions. Famine predictions are being carried out to estimate when shortage of food is most likely to happen. The traditional data sets such as house hold information, price trends, crop production trends and biophysical data used for predicting food insecurity are both labor intensive and expensive to acquire. Current trends are towards harnessing big data to study various phenomena such sentiment analysis and stock markets. Big data is said to be easier to obtain than traditional datasets. This study shows that phone messages archives and telephone conversations as big datasets are potential for predicting food crisis. This is timely with the current situation of massive penetration of mobile technology and the necessary data can be gathered to foster studies such as this. Computation techniques such as Naïve Bayes, Artificial Networks and Support Vector Machines are prospective candidates in this strategy. If the strategy is to work in a nation like Uganda, areas of concern have been highlighted. Future work points at exploring this approach experimentally.

Performance measurement has increasingly become central to the efficiency and effectiveness of any government – developed or developing. The introduction of public sector reforms, which transferred most service delivery obligations to the private sector under the New Public Management (NPM) doctrines, demanded a strong performance measurement framework. Sequel to continual government's role in public service delivery in the last decade coming under attack, a revival interest in the exact role of government in public services delivery has thus become imperative. Evaluating performance of different sectors of government is paramount and provides useful information for effective decision-making. This article presents empirical findings of the Government Half Annual Performance Report for the security, justice and governance cluster. The objective is to highlight areas where progress has been made against the set targets and actions and where delays have been occasioned within the context of Uganda. These findings however are useful in guiding different actors including Cabinet and line Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Local governments in ensuring that agreed targets are met at the end of the Financial Year.

This preliminary theoretical paper seeks to set the stage for an empirical study to identify the critical determinants of new venture creation in Uganda using Kirznerian perspective of entrepreneurial opportunities framework. The lack of a developed theory in extant literature that provides comprehensive explanation of how new ventures emerge in the context of a developing country like Uganda justifies the reliance of Kirznerian analytical framework. The phenomenon of new venture emergence is important to the Ugandan economy as it provides young people with jobs necessary to avert the prevailing challenge of unemployment. A need for achievement plays a mediating role.

Corruption in public procurement has been a menace to the innocent poor citizens through denial of better services. While many good legislation and institutional frameworks have been set in place to fight corruption in Uganda; the results remain disappointing. The recent procurement reforms in Uganda (from 2003 to date) are yet to yield substantive results to this end. In this paper we advocate for the use of citizen-driven approaches (CDAs) as a strategy for addressing the public procurement corruption malaise in Uganda's local governments. Drawing from empirical findings from over 1,000 randomly sampled respondents in the four regions of Uganda, the paper also examines the contradictions associated CDA and suggestions on what governments ought to do if they are to achieve benefits from this approach. We propose social accountability (SAc), a process of constructive engagement between citizens and government in order to improve performance in the use of public resources.