By Joseph Mawejje, Research Analyst Natural resource management and governance often ignore the needs, fears and concerns of the local communities to both the government and the people’s detriment.  Too often the needs of local communities are overlooked when such great economic opportunities arise.  While local communities often expect great things from new natural resource discoveries, they also fear and anticipate marginalisation by the government and the incoming corporations, according to a study by the Economic Policy and Research Centre (EPRC) that examines how prepared Uganda is to accelerate growth and maintain intergenerational equity, the impact of the burgeoning Ugandan oil sector on the lives and concerns of the people most directly affected by this new industry. The last decade has seen resurgence in interest of the vast natural resources in Africa. Oil and gas resources have been at the forefront of natural resource exploration in many countries in A...

By Musa Mayanja Lwanga Research Analyst Recent findings suggest that liberalisation of the Ugandan agricultural sector has created positive responses in the dairy sector.   A study by the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) has found that policies that took effect in the 1990s have increased total milk production, enhanced the variety of available dairy products and actually created growth in the related livestock sector as well.   In addition, through their value chain analysis study, EPRC scholars Dr. Swaibu Mbowa, Mr. Isaac Shinyekwa and Mr. Musa Mayanja Lwanga noted that that the development of the value chain in the dairy sector has led to employment creation and income generation not only for dairy farming households, but also for farm input dealers, dairy equipment dealers, dairy ingredients dealers, raw milk traders, milk transporters, mini-dairies, large scale milk processors, and distributors. Total national milk production has grown from 460 million lit...