Download “Reorienting Uganda`s Foreign Policy: Addressing Contemporary

REPUBLIC OF UGANDA
STATEMENT
BY
HON. SAM K. KUTESA
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
AT
THE LAUCH OF THE UGANDA COUNCIL ON FOREIGN
RELATIONS
ON THE THEME
REORIENTING UGANDA’S FORIEGN POLICY: ADDRESSING
CONTEMPORARY FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES
7 JUNE, 2016
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Members of the Uganda Council on Foreign Relations,
Your Excellencies Heads of Diplomatic Missions,
Distinguished invited guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
Good afternoon! Thank you for inviting me to address this
gathering of stakeholders, friends and practitioners of foreign
relations.
As the world around us changes and evolves, so has the conduct
of foreign affairs and international relations. We are in a state of
constant
challenges
and
opportunities.
The
institutional
framework for conducting international relations and foreign
policy implementation has changed. Now, more than ever before,
foreign policy formulation and implementation is carried out by
many actors and stakeholders. Invariably, they are also affected
by it.
While the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains central,
regional and sub-regional organizations; the media; and civil
society actors have taken on an important role. Across the world,
international relations and foreign policy think-tanks have been
established to support and influence policy formulation and
implementation. Our gathering here this afternoon is to support
a similar endeavor – namely, to formally launch the Uganda
Council on Foreign Relations. I will return to this later.
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Those of you who attended, or have read President Yoweri
Museveni’s State of the Nation Address, delivered on 31st May,
recall the emphasis he placed on East Africa’s integration. He
pointed out, and I quote: “the political and economic integration of
East Africa is not just for sentimental reasons. It is in order to
ensure our prosperity….The 160 million people East African
market should be used to pull investments for the prosperity of our
people”, end quote.
As I will highlight shortly, deepening regional cooperation and
integration is now central to our foreign policy. And this brings
me to the theme of my talk this afternoon. As we are here to
launch a Council on Foreign Relations, the theme I chose is:
“Reorienting Uganda’s Foreign Policy: Addressing Contemporary
Foreign Policy Challenges”. As we move forward, I will be
interested in hearing your views on how the Council we are
launching can contribute to Government’s efforts. How can we
work together, to formulate and deliver a foreign policy that
supports Uganda’s prosperity and transformation?
By all standards, we have a new world order, and it will continue
to evolve. No doubt, this requires that we realign our foreign
policy to fit in the new world order.
Politically, countries and non-state actors alike, continue to
challenge the super-power notion that dominated international
discourse not too long ago. New challenges to peace and security
continue to emerge, even with our best efforts to stop them.
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Almost on a daily basis, horrifying stories and images of terrorist
attacks or terror-related arrests are brought to our attention. By
2014, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, there
was a nine-fold increase in the number of deaths from terrorism
since 2000, rising from 3,329 to 32,685 in 2014.
Apart from Al-qaeda, there has been an emergence of ‘home
grown’ terrorist organizations in Africa, such as the LRA, AlShabab and Boko Haram. Their threats not only affect national
security, but also regional and international peace and security,
and cannot therefore be taken lightly.
Lately, human and drug trafficking has been on the increase, and
undermines peace and security. We are all aware of its effects in
places like the Gulf of Guinea, and indeed off the Libyan coast
currently. Unfortunately, Uganda has lately become a vibrant
drug trafficking transit center. Today, many Ugandans are in
prisons across many countries due to drug-related offences, with
some sentenced to death. Addressing poverty levels among
communities will be one way of stopping this vice.
The nature and conduct of international politics is also changing.
Humanitarian intervention has somehow become an important
value.
Individually
or
collectively,
countries
can
directly
intervene, even cause regime change in other countries, all in the
name of the responsibility to protect. While it is conceptually a
good principle, for countries to protect their citizens against mass
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atrocities such as genocide, its enforcement and effects has thus
far left divided opinion.
Today, if you ask our friends in Europe, the experience and
effects could not have been predicted. The humanitarian
intervention in Libya, with the express authorisation of the
Security Council, has left a near failed state on our shores.
Annually, Libya has become a major contributor to the growing
number
of
Elsewhere,
migrants
and
technological
refugees
advances
crossing
have
into
unleashed
Europe.
almost
uncontrollable social media platforms which are used by many to
incite violence against governments. There is no telling how much
political damage it can do.
On the socio-economic front, issues like demography and the
population explosion have become important. Not only do they
affect national planning, but also cause diverse effects on the
environment and climate change. In addition, population growth
has exacerbated the growing demand for energy resources,
sometimes heightening the risk of tensions among nations due to
increased competition.
ICT continues to revolutionalise our way of life. Financially, it has
provided a platform to transfer money to the remotest parts of the
country, through mobile phones. Over night, it has transformed
commerce and trade. But most important, it has facilitated
instant communication and exchange of information between
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people worlds apart. This, to me, is the single most important
innovation in recent times.
However, it has created problems of its own for the international
community to contend with. Crimes previously unknown to us,
such as cyber crime have become common place. Money
laundering is also on the rise. By its illicit nature, it is difficult to
have accurate estimates. However, the United Nations Office on
drugs and Crime estimates that, 2 -5 percent of global GDP, or
between USD 800 billion – 2 trillion is laundered globally every
year.
There is also the international financial problem which has
refused to go away, affecting big and small countries alike. With
new international financing requirements for climate change and
sustainable
development
goals,
big
financing
gaps
exist.
Inevitably, developing countries such as Uganda, as well as
regional and sub-regional organizations must find ways to
generate own monies to finance their priorities. As austerity
measures increase across Europe, bilateral and multilateral
funding is bound to reduce, as it is happening with AMISOM.
Foreign direct investment is also likely to reduce, at least in the
short term.
As foreign policy practitioners, we must take interest in what is
going on around the trade and investment arena, especially
among the big economies. How can our small economies survive,
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in the face of increasing trade and investment cooperation among
big powers?
Take the example of China, on one hand. In 2015, trade volumes
between China and
the
United
States, according to
the
Government of China, reached USD 558.4 billion, making China
the second largest trading partner with the United States. Yet,
the two countries are negotiating a Bilateral Investment Treaty,
with a view to further strengthen their trade and investment
portfolio.
On the other hand, according to the European Commission, EU’s
investment in the United States is around eight times the amount
of EU’s investment in India and China. Together, the economies
of the EU and US account for about half of the entire world GDP,
and for nearly one third of the world’s trade flows.
Yet, the European Commission and the United States are holding
talks for a trade and investment agreement to increase trade and
investment among them. According to the European Union
Commission, eliminating or harmonizing one quarter of existing
non-tariff barriers in trade alone, could boost a combined EU and
US GDP by USD 106 billion annually. These are major
developments that should interest us.
While our foreign policy must address and be concerned by the
above issues, and many others emerging, it must also be tailored
to contribute to our national priorities. Three years ago, in 2013,
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we launched Vision 2040, with the aim of transforming Uganda
from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30
years.
We must be useful in addressing some of the major bottlenecks
impeding Uganda’s progress, such as: a weak private sector;
inadequate
and
industrialization
underdeveloped
and
value
human
addition;
resources;
limited
limited
government
investment in strategic and emerging industries; undeveloped
services sector; underdeveloped agriculture; low competitiveness
of Ugandan goods; and poor and limited infrastructure; and high
energy costs.
Recently, we reviewed our foreign policy. Its central pillar is to
enhance regional cooperation and integration, while building
strategic international partnerships to support our development.
We are emphasizing the following major priorities:
First, suporting regional and international peace and security. As
a Landlocked country, it is of strategic interest that our
neighbours are all safe and secure. When regional peace and
security is disturbed, so will our imports and exports, and by
extension our development. This explains why we are interested
in strengthening preventive diplomacy, peace support and peace
building initiatives in the region. To preserve peace, it is
important that we combat cross-border crimes such as terrorism,
human trafficking, illicit small arms trade, smuggling, and money
laundering.
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It is equally important that we support frameworks on the
management and protection of shared trans-boundary natural
resources, to ensure their equitable and sustainable use.
Second, we have dedicated our efforts towards deepening regional
cooperation and integration, and international cooperation. The
East African Community, for Uganda, is at the forefront.
However, we are also harmonising policies with other subregional
organizations,
through
the
EAC-COMESA-SADC
tripartite arrangements, with a view to reducing overlap and
enhancing efficiency.
In order to promote regional policies that create the greatest
impact for the country, we have reinvigorated the Northern
Corridor through a series of integration projects. The intention is
to spur growth; ease and facilitate regional trade; and add value
to
our
raw
materials.
We
have
also
agreed
to
develop
infrastructure for the Southern route at Tanga, starting with the
oil pipeline. Regional and international partnerships, including
the involvement of the private sector, will be critical to realise our
objectives.
Partnerships such as ACP-EU, FOCAC, India-Africa, TICAD and
Afro-Arab Cooperation have been critical is supporting Uganda’s
development. With the implementation of the SDGs, such
partersnips have become even more relevant. The question that
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begs our attention is this: How can we, as country, ensure
maximum benefits from these regional cooperation frameworks?
Third, we are emphasizing commercial and economic diplomacy.
Strengthening multilateral economic cooperation, inluding SouthSouth cooperation is critical. We must develop favourable rulesbased trading regimes to allow access to markets. Our challenge,
domestically, remains inadequate production and supply of
quality poducts. Efforts at industrialisation and agro-processing
must be doubled.
Other important priority considerations include:
i.
Promotion
and
respect
for
bilateral,
regional
and
international and human rights obligations. Issues related
to good governance and rule of law are important, both for
our populations, but also for attracting and sustaining
investment;
ii.
Harnessing the full potential of Diaspora for Uganda’s
development;
iii.
Effective engagement on oil and gas issues to ensure
maximum benefit for Uganda; and
iv.
Harnessing
the
full
potential
of
Information
and
Communication Technologies, not only to grow the services
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sector, but also to support production and support human
resources development.
In brief, these are some of the emerging challenges and issues. I
have also outlined the sort of foreign policy reorientation we are
undergoing. How then will the Council we are launching
contribute to it?
I have been informed that the Council will, inter alia: carry out
regular panel and expert discussions and workshops on topical
issues; conduct research on foreign policy-related issues; provide
a platform for foreign policy debate and advocacy; and engage
government, national, regional and international bodies on
foreign policy formulation.
These are good ideals to pursue, and I am looking forward to the
Council’s contribution to supporting Uganda’s continuing foreign
policy development. The research, debates and discussions you
carry out must be relevant and support Uganda’s development.
Going forward, creating regional and international partnerships
and negotiation meaningful bilateral trade and investment deals
will be crucial for our development. I expect this council to
generate ideas that could support our efforts on these and other
important issues.
I thank you for your kind attention.
END
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