About me.

Andrew M. Mwenda is the founding Managing Editor of The Independent, Uganda’s premier current affairs newsmagazine. One of Foreign Policy magazine 's top 100 Global Thinkers, TED Speaker and Foreign aid Critic



Monday, January 30, 2017

In defense of oil cash bonanza


Why it was morally right to reward public officials for winning Shs1.6 trillion worth of government revenues

“It is not easy to stand apart from mass hysteria, to argue against something that everyone, especially the most respected political leaders, academics, and experts are saying and instead argue that they are mistaken or deluded.” Leo Tolstoy, 1897.

Monday, January 23, 2017

End of a global nightmare



Why Trump may be a breath of fresh air into the global atmosphere that had been polluted by Obama’s megalomania

Finally the nightmare called the presidency of Barack Obama that the world (but most especially America) has endured over the last eight years comes to an end. This self-inflated and self-styled “black man” imagined himself to straddle the globe like a colossus. He deluded himself into the belief that he was a man of boundless importance. He convinced himself that he alone understood the problems of the world and was singularly qualified to solve them.

Monday, January 16, 2017

Economic growth Vs development


Don’t judge Uganda by where it is but by the speed at which it is growing 


I have been arguing that Uganda’s economy has been growing at an impressive rate over the last 30 years. Many readers have written to me saying that although we are growing economically, we are not developing. This shows a misunderstanding of the relationship between growth and development. Economic growth refers to a quantitative increase in the goods and services produced within an economy in a given period of time. Development is a qualitative increase in the same.

Monday, January 9, 2017

ECOMOG’s Gambian gamble



The likely dangers of the Western African states’ attempts to impose a solution on The Gambia

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has resolved to send a military force (ECOMOG) into The Gambia apparently to achieve three interrelated objectives: first to “protect” the president-elect, Adama Barrow; second to uphold the presidential elections results that President Yahya Jammeh has cancelled; third to ensure that Barrow is sworn in as president. This is a big gamble that is likely to cause more problems than it seeks to solve.

Kizza Besigye’s biggest mistake


And how it is killing opposition to Museveni

On Feb.2, Kizza Besigye, the former Presidential flag bearer for the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), called the press to announce a new pressure group he is calling the People’s Government Network.
Besigye called on supporters to be representatives of the network in their communities and help build pressure against President Yoweri Museveni’s government.