Healthcare in poor countries

Why nations that are different exhibit similar health service dysfunctions

I have been rereading Melle Leenstra’s 2012 book, `Beyond the Façade; the instrumentalisation of the Zambian health sector’. It offers an interesting insight into the challenges that central African nation faces in its attempts to provide quality healthcare to its citizens. It reads like a story of the healthcare system in Uganda or any other poor country. Let us cite the book at some length.

Tweet

Museveni’s work in Luwero

Why efforts to make peasant farmers go commercial are unlikely to yield success

President Yoweri Museveni spent a week in Luwero District on Operation Wealth Creation. The president was teaching farmers to adopt modern farming techniques in order to increase their output and become commercial farmers. The actions of the president may have excited the affection of local people there but it was heavily derided on social media, today the most powerful medium of communication that has overtaken traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television. It seems everything Museveni does these days only attracts criticism from our elite.

Tweet

US chicken come home to roost

How Trump won not because he violated American values but because he upheld American vices

This week, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to win the US presidency. This is especially intriguing because Trump had been vilified by America’s powerful weapons of mass propaganda; the gigantic corporate owned and controlled media. Every pundit, journalist, academic and politician of any heft came out to denounce him including fellow Republican Party heavyweights. Trump just didn’t care: he belittled his Republican critics, insulted the journalists, denigrated women and threatened ethnic minorities. The elite accused him of “violating” every code of “American values.”

Tweet

Rethinking the banking industry

Lesson for Central Bank from the experience of the takeover of Crane Bank

This week, the government injected Shs 200 billion into Crane Bank to bolster its liquidity position. This is only 40% of the Shs 500 billion needed to bring the bank into a healthy liquidity position. Yet, even if an extra Shs 300 billion is pumped into the bank, it is unlikely to be enough to ensure its turnaround. This situation could have been avoided had Bank of Uganda (BoU) exercised its powers with foresight.

Tweet