In his recent address in Bugisu, President Museveni stressed the urgent need to integrate rural communities into the formal money economy to drive economic growth.
Museveni highlighted the economic hardships hindering progress in rural areas, such as the inability of families to afford basic necessities like bedding and clothing.
He pointed out that children in rural households are forced to share a single blanket, illustrating the extent of poverty.
This, he argued, underscores the need to unlock rural economic potential by enabling these communities to access the broader money economy.
Museveni called on political, religious, cultural, and business leaders to prioritize empowering the 37% of the population still outside the money economy.
By increasing their purchasing power, these communities could participate more actively in the market, thereby stimulating demand for essential goods like food, textiles, and household items such as sugar, milk, and meat.
“The majority of the people are in agriculture; wake up those people so they can join the money economy, so that every household is earning money,” Museveni said.
He particularly stressed the strong link between rural purchasing power and urban development, noting that rural transformation is key to urban prosperity.
“Rural transformation is very crucial for urban transformation because it will equip rural areas with purchasing power, which will drive demand for industries in your shops,” he added.
He cited the example of textile consumption per household, emphasizing how greater purchasing power in rural areas would lead to increased demand for consumer goods, benefiting both rural and urban markets.
He also highlighted several government initiatives designed to promote economic inclusion, such as the Parish Development Model (PDM), Emyoga, and GROW programs, which aim to create wealth-generation opportunities at the grassroots level.
He noted that infrastructure development, including projects like road initiatives, is a critical component of Uganda’s transformation but must be paired with efforts to improve the purchasing power of all citizens.
By advocating for a gradual shift towards a money economy, Museveni promotes deliberate, sustainable, and community-driven development, where the government plays a facilitative role rather than offering a quick fix.
This strategy challenges the common mindset that the government alone holds the key to solving the nation’s economic problems.
Museveni’s call to integrate rural communities into the money economy aligns with Uganda’s broader Local Economic Development (LED) policy, which emphasizes local empowerment, poverty reduction, and creating economic opportunities through the active participation of local populations in economic processes.
His call reflects key principles of this approach, which aims to boost local markets, create jobs, and reduce poverty.
His appeal can also be understood through the lens of ecosystem theory, which emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of various components within an environment, with changes in one part affecting the entire system.
Ecosystem theory, in the context of economic systems, suggests that a holistic approach to development requires recognizing the dynamic relationships between different sectors of the economy—rural and urban, agricultural and industrial, local and national—and how they affect each other.
Ecosystem theory also emphasizes the complexity of systems and the need for collective action to address challenges.
In the economic ecosystem, different actors—governments, businesses, community leaders, and individuals—must work together to achieve sustainable growth.
Overall, Museveni’s call for a coordinated approach, engaging political, religious, cultural, and business spheres, highlights the need for collective action to propel national economic growth.
