Uganda's experience with aid

This paper presents Uganda's experience with aid flows overthe period 1970-96. It discusses the compilation of aid dataand also reviews the chronological developments in aid flowsto Uganda. Over this period, the sectoral distribution and typeof aid is largely dictated by the government's economic programmesin place. The period 1962-71 largely reflects government borrowingfor on-lending to agriculture and industry whereas the period1979-85 shows a wider range of sector-specific programmes drivenby the need to reconstruct and rehabilitate the economy. Althoughthe need to reconstruct and rehabilitate the economy continued,support for policy reform began to take up an increasing proportionof aid over the period 1987-96. We also analyse the impact ofaid on some major macroeconomic variables and find that investmentand real exchange rate developments have been largely drivenby official development aid flows. Although we find a similarrelationship between aid and improved policy environment, thefindings show that in the latter part, i.e., 1992-6, the continuedpolicy reform was driven more by ownership of the programmethan by aid. Indeed, in this latter period, the aid/GDP ratiosdeclined. The major lesson drawn from this study is that ownershipof a reform programme is more critical for its success, henceour conclusion that aid should be used for financing ratherthan buying reforms.