Neoliberal Moral Economy: Capitalism, Socio-Cultural Change and Fraud in Uganda by Jörg Wiegratz London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. x + 375. £90·00 (hbk). £29·95 (pbk). £29·99 (e-pub).
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Abstract
Neoliberal Moral Economy: Capitalism, Socio-Cultural Change and Fraud in Uganda by Jörg Wiegratz London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. x + 375. £90·00 (hbk). £29·95 (pbk). £29·99 (e-pub). - Volume 56 Issue 2 - Jonathan Fisher
Following fifteen years of Idi Amin, war and civil war, the Ugandan economy was in ruins by the time peace was restored in 1986. Since then Uganda has consistently been one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, leading to a substantial reduction in poverty. This book helps explain how this economic transformation was brought about. Uganda's success has arguably had more influence on development thinking and on the international aid architecture than any other country. The HIPC debt relief initiative, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the growth of budget support have all been strongly influenced by Ugandan experience and thinking, while Ugandan innovations such as poverty reduction strategies, public expenditure tracking surveys, and virtual poverty funds have been widely adopted elsewhere. Most of the reforms, that transformed the economy, originated inside the Ugandan government during the 1990s, rather than being imposed through donor conditionality. In this book, the architects of those reforms give their personal accounts of the thinking behind the reforms, how they were implemented, and their impact. Individual chapters cover reforms across the spectrum of central government economic policy and management, while Chapter 1 presents an overview and Chapter 2 the institutional and political background.
The politics of development has shifted significantly in recent years, with largely negative implications for the poverty agenda. This is particularly apparent in countries like Uganda where “poverty reduction papers” have been displaced by national development plans aimed at “structural transformation,” driven by the discovery of oil, the growing influence of rising powers vis-à-vis traditional donors and domestic political shifts. Although this heralds the possibility of deeper national ownership over development policy, international financial institutions have adopted strategies to maintain their influence. Moreover, Uganda currently lacks the underlying political capacities and relationships required to roll out this ambitious new agenda.