Abstract
For over two decades now, Sub-Saharan Africa has been superimposed in a coercive and contradictory neo-liberal development economism agenda. According to this paradigm, markets and not states are the fundamental determinants of distributive justice and human flourishing through the promotion of economic growth that is believed to trickle down to the poor in due time. Despite the global intellectual criticism of this neo-liberal development economics orthodox of measuring development and wellbeing in terms of market induced economic growth, autocratic states in Sub-Saharan Africa that have accumulated un-dimensional growth continue to be applauded as role models on poverty reduction, wellbeing and social justice by donors and global development institutions such as the World Bank and international monetary fund (IMF). This is basically because they have wholly embraced the implementation of the anti-pro-poor neo-liberal structural adjustment tool kit. This study uses a critical hermeneutics methodology to expose the distortions embedded in neo-liberal gross domestic product (GDP) growth cartographies and how these disguise the social injustices against the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa with particular reference to Uganda. The study contends that in measuring development and wellbeing, human rights and social justice must take precedence over economic efficiency and GDP growth for that matter. Key words: Cartographies, Neo-liberal development, social injustices, Sub-Saharan Africa.
Highlights
Since 1990, there has been a seeming increasing commitment to human rights and social justice on the African continent and in Sub-Saharan Africa as evidenced by the increasing commitment to electoral and constitutional democracy, ratification of international human rights treaties and domestication of these international human rights standards.In Uganda for example, even peasant cultivators were given the constitutional mandate to usher their leaders in and out of leadershipi
Over the decade (2000 to 2009), economic growth was very strong in East Africa, with regional real gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging 6.6% annually (African Development Bank, 2011)
Neo-liberalism was imposed on the country, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, by external actors in the process and aftermath of structural adjustment policies after the1980s
Summary
Since 1990, there has been a seeming increasing commitment to human rights and social justice on the African continent and in Sub-Saharan Africa as evidenced by the increasing commitment to electoral and constitutional democracy, ratification of international human rights treaties and domestication of these international human rights standards (political globalization). Neo-liberalism was imposed on the country, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, by external actors in the process and aftermath of structural adjustment policies after the1980s It has since been pervasive, due to the powerful ideological, normative and material impact of the foreign agents of the „development industry‟, especially the international financial institutions (IFIs) and the various bilateral donors, which promoted neo-liberalism in the country (Harrison, 2010); and due to the (evolving) interests, orientations and actions of a range of domestic actors. Sub-Saharan African economies such as Uganda and Rwanda were cautioned to include the views of the poor in their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The country is off track and most seriously so on primary education completion and child and maternal mortality This leaves Uganda with serious challenges to poverty reduction which, as is economic growth, is further hampered by the high population growth of 3.3% (Austrian Development Cooperation, 2010). In line with the Austrian Development Cooperation policy on poverty reduction, this support took into account the multifaceted nature of poverty and target aspects of two dimensions of poverty by focusing on
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