Agricultural tradables and economic recovery in Uganda: The limitations ofstructural adjustment in practice

Uganda's economic reform program has been widely regarded as a success stor y for structural adjustment. Nevertheless, a large trade deficit persists, shored up by inflows of aid and private remittances, The poor performance o f the agricultural tradables sector is presented as the key explanation for this trade imbalance. Two main reasons for this poor performance are found to be the failure to liberalize producer prices quickly and the failure to overcome early institutional resistance to reforms of marketing arrangemen ts. Uganda's recovery is therefore much less impressive than it appears and the sustainability of the now heavily aid-dependent economy must remain in serious doubt. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.