Uganda and Tanzania: Which Country has a Better Economic Future?
Describe and analyze the differences in economic development during the 20th century of two countries assigned to you in the attached table (through your candidate number). The comparison between the two countries should drive your arguments. Use data/graphs/pictures/tables to build your argument and cite your sources. You should select two of the following issues and address their impact on the development of the chosen pair of your countries: • Have these countries escaped the Malthusian trap. When? Briefly describe the evidence to support your assertion. • Discuss how and why economic specialization took place. Which other countries did both places trade or compete with? Make sure to point out whether the countries you studied had an absolute advantage in other activities in which they did not specialize. • We looked at four main factors that explain why countries grow: geography, trade, institutions, and changes in productivity within the Solow Model. What factor has contributed the most in explaining differences in economic growth (or lack thereof)? Discuss the role of all four factors for the two countries you chose. • What role has migration played in the development of each country? • What was the role of state capacity in dealing with the protection of the rules of property and contract? How has violence influenced the stability of the institutional environment in your countries? Discuss the role of centralisation and violence/conflict in shaping state capacity
Uganda v/s Tanzania: Which Country has a Better Economic Future?
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Uganda v/s Tanzania: Which Country has a Better Economic Future?
Introduction
The two countries of Uganda and Tanzania form part of East Africa. Unfortunately, this is also the part where economic development has been slow, and the rewards of globalization can hardly be felt. One can get many ideas about the situational development within this region, and the possible limiting factors, by comparing the two countries of Uganda and Tanzania. The reason is that they both gained independence in essentially the exact times, the former in 1962 while the latter became the United Republic by the year 1964. The essay exposes the economic and development indicators for the two countries and mentions globalization and cross-country migration in developing such nations as Uganda and Tanzania.
Malthusian Trap and its Role
It is a theory that points to a dilemma in the demography of any region. It suggests that as countries begin to improve their production processes (agriculture and industries) and their living standards, their population increases simultaneously. With the increase in population, the resources ultimately become fewer for compensating the new population members. These resources include food, cultivatable land, skilled and educated labor, and capital. When these resources become scarce and the adaptive mechanisms, including outpacing the population growth and regulating population growth, are not in place, countries like Uganda and Tanzania are left behind in the global race for development and prosperity. Malthusian theory underpins the development, or lack thereof, in the two countries. The economic indicators which can assist in the judgment of whether the two countries have escaped the trap successfully or not are given below:
Population Growth Rate
The population growth rate is an essential factor in assessing or predicting demographic transition. In Uganda, most of the population lives in rural areas and grows crops. The number of these people has been increasing on the back of declining quality standards of life or life expectations. The result of which is that they lack the education or do not have access to birth control in their region (Dent, 2007). The same goes for Tanzania as well (Fayos-Solà et al., 2014). This shows that both countries have never fully satisfied their people's needs since the degradation of natural resources and the continuous wipe-out of the agricultural land due to settlements have meant less food production. While the population growth rate is declining in both countries, the population growth is an alarming situation, as discussed earlier, because of the declining food production due to the overall decline in cultivatable land (Wanyama et al., 2013).
Uganda population growth rate: Data Source: (Macrotrends, 2020a)
Tanzania population growth rate: Data Source: (Macrotrends, 2020b)
Fertility Rate
It is the number of births per woman of reproductive age.
Uganda fertility rate: Data Source: (Macrotrends, 2020a)
Tanzania fertility rate: Data Source: (Macrotrends, 2020b)
As it is apparent from the fertility rate graphs for both the East African countries, the fertility rates began to drop in the 1980s and 1990s (Dent, 2007). For Uganda, this rate did not go higher, but for Tanzania, this rate went in an upward direction for a brief period from 1998 to 2010. Actually, after the signing of the Arusha declaration, whose aim was to bring prosperity to East African countries, Uganda and Tanzania adopted ways to increase the income levels of their people through education, immigration, and agricultural technology. While Uganda stayed the course for the coming years and its fertility rate declined (Wanyama et al., 2013). Moreover, low fertility leads up to an age structure that provides foundation for the decline in population, which is what these two countries are after ultimately given the scarcity of resources. In Tanzania, the political instability was at its peak during the 1980s and 1990s, signified by the bombing of United States embassies in Tanzania (Fayos-Solà et al., 2014). Thus, the three countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania signed East African Community Treaty (EAC) in 1999, whose mission was to "widen and deepen Economic, Political, Social and Culture integration in order to improve the quality of life of the people of East Africa through increased competitiveness, value-added production, trade, and investments." This has since led to a drop in the fertility rate (EAC, 2014).
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per Capita
GDP refers to the total value of goods and services produced in a financial year by a country. GDP per capita refers to the GDP divided by the midyear population. It is an indicator of growth because it points to labour productivity, increasing rate of investment, the effectiveness of the country's production processes, and the link of production growth with population. Uganda and Tanzania are agrarian economies, meaning a large portion of whatever the ...