Challenges of Entreprenuership in Uganda!

I have always nursed ambitions in business since my University days. When I left University in 2000, like any other young graduate, my major challenge was putting my business conceptual ideas into reality. My thinking of the job market was not good.I had a bank account though with irregular activity. I had no capital but I had great ideas. In Uganda, like many other African nations, entreprenuers are a class that can't easily break into the realm of risky business because their capital base can even be blown by a slight wind. Meantime, you have micro-finance institutions charging between (3-4)% monthly interests on micro-loans which translates into (36-48)% annually. Certainly, this is not good economics for the poor. The Micro-finance institutions are private companies doing business and government has certified them as legal business entities and they pay tax based on returns. There are also financial shylocks in town that are playing a part in the financial market.By default, government knows very well how both the formal and informal financial market charges their clients. Infact, most of the interest rates are determined by Bank of Uganda with the full knowledge of the World Bank/IMF, the two principle economic policy advisory agents of government. It means Government efforts to fight poverty are contradictory in policy. The political will does not mirror the technical and policy platform on which the economy runs. This fortunately is not something that can be explained from a political prism to many potential voters who are trapped in poverty by would be beneficiaries.

I ventured into livestock farming since its our traditional occupation as the Banyarwanda. I had heard students and people assert that obtaining a job required knowing people high up in corridors of government or relatives in corporate institutions. Certainly I did not know very many. Even those I knew, I did not have much political or social influence. I have for long had the ambition for Business and in a big way. Having graduated with a BSc. majoring in Biochemistry coupled with IT Training, as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in 2000 and my knowledge in Cisco industry hardware deployments, I had a broad views of where the world was heading. But I lacked the social support to nurture this dream to fruition. Early 2001, I was hired as a Network Engineer by an international public health agency. This job gave me "comfort", my zeal for business went into a lull till 2003. My knuck for business saw me start my initial investment in real estates as a sole proprietor. The difficulty even here was that banks were only willing to grant me credit based on my employment and not the business proposal I had. Advisory services were purely inclined on the security of my employment rather than my business potential & projections. That to me was a minus to the banking sector in Uganda! The credit facility advertized at in the range of (25-28)% was not for investment in assets that could generate streams of income for the future but vehicles, home electronics & utensils. Then the mortgage industry was limited and still is to a few lucrative areas which many young people cannot break in. Those that existed had an operational radius of 5 miles from the city center. This locked out many would be participants. Patience and perseverence in business is important but the structural bottle-necks to infant entreprenuership drain morale, undermine productivity of a big size of our labor force. My initial investment was $3.500 and today my forced market value of my investment stands at approximately $50.000. This investment is locked up in my names and like many I fear the risk of presenting it to a bank at an average interest of 25% to expand my business.The above bottle-necks, registration of the company was laborious. A lot of paper work to chase around in the registry of companies. Public officers made it look like I was being done a favor.Many middle-men in the food chain asking for bribes. When it came to voluntary VAT registration of a new incorporated company, I was asked to avail the assets, properties, vehicles for a company that had not done any business. Presenting a few of my personal assets which indeed I was using to establish the company, I was asked to pay a provisional tax as a "show" of seriousness. To obtain the TIN number and the VAT certificate I had to interface with many middle-men(Red Tape). In addition, you have to pay for an operational licence as well as a Trading licence at local government level. This would not be a problem but there is need to offer incentives for registered businesses to grow rather than kill them before they can start. In a nut-shell, there are lots of young people who can't participate in the economy because of these structural disincentives.The end result is unemployment, redundancy, crime, politcal resentment and conflict. A few people manage to swim through these challenges but these are issues that can be addressed institutionally but any Visionary Government! Rockford Harris Group,Ltd a multi-skilled corporation through its syergistic approach is build capacity through institutional and business development consultancies to both individual, corporate and public institutions in specific areas of inters. You can find more info about the corporation on http://www.rockfordharris.com

Internet Neutrality & fragmentation: future scenarios for the internet!

Fifteen years ago, few predicted the profound impact of the revolution in information and communications technologies. Looking ahead another 15 years, the world will encounter more quantum leaps in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). In this thesis, I will highlight potential trends and scenarios in regards to the current neutrality of the internet. I will extrapolate the impact of the internet on other drivers of global trends from a political prism.

The impact of the internet on global communication and trends will remain a key driver of global governance in the next 15 years. Not in isolation, issues of demographics, natural resource and environment, the global economy and Globalization, national and international governance, future conflicts, and the role of the United States remain key drivers of the future of the world. The internet and ICTs in general will remain the epicenter of global communications with a huge impact on all aspects of human development.

The inter-linkage and interaction between the internet and the above drivers of the global future emerges major uncertainties of the current neutrality of the internet and its related technological innovations. The potential of internet fragmentation and a successful onslaught on the net neutrality will occur based on policy decision made by global leaders and other internet stakeholders. The internet driven globalization process has further socially stratified the world into wealth classes. There is a segment of the internet market that indeed can afford real-time application demanding resources and the prevalence of service providers willing to meet the demands of this market for $$$$$ is one good example of market driven innovations. Certainly, treating the internet as being homogenous through NN legislation is technically wrong.

From a broader angle, the emergency of science and technology and its integration with ICTs, production and delivery chain automation have revolutionarized agriculture, health, transport, military, security surveillance and in leap-frog, applications such as universal wireless cellular communications networking developing countries that lacked landline telephony. The internet today clearly presents national security challenges of uncertain character and scale as over-reliance on computer networks will/make(s) state infrastructures more attractive targets for cyber-attacks between and among adversaries. The use of the internet for industrial espionage and economic espionage will present further effects on state relations. The use of spy-satellites for state intelligence or the potential for space militarization poses another threat to the current internet architecture. Rapid advances and diffusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology and other science materials and the integration of scientific research to the internet present further security challenges to the foundation of the state with increasing threats of bio-terrorism despite the obvious opportunities in advancing medicine for public health.

From a US or state strategic point of view, the internet future presents a scenario where countries recognize the information advantage and military superiority of the United States as a result of its traditional lead position in technology innovation and the Internet. They also perceive the internet, despite its global public good attributes, to be the lead tool granting it further traditional leverage in cultural as well economic domination of world politics. Rather than acquiesce to any potential US military domination, they will try to circumvent or minimize US strengths and exploit perceived weakness particularly by reducing the impact of US cultural hegemony through the internet and other emerging cable media.
USTTI Fellows at Cisco,San Jose,CA.

The above approach potentially posses the emergency of regional, state controlled nets or development of sovereign cyber territories. Internet driven globalization will significantly increase interaction among extreme groups commonly known as “terrorists”, narcotraffickers, weapons proliferators, organized criminals, who in a networked world will have greater access to information, to technology, to finance, to sophisticated deception-and-denial- techniques and to each other. Such asymmetric approaches whether deployed by the state or non-state actors have and will become dominant characteristics of future global politics and will greatly craft in the hand of the state greatly diminishing the current net neutrality aspects. These will be definitive challenges for state strategy, operations, and force development and will require strategies to maintain focus on traditional, low technology threats as well as the capacity of potential adversaries to harness elements of proliferating advanced technologies. Some of these scenarios between the US and other strategic adversaries such as China are taking shape. We have seen states such as Iran, North Korea developing nuclear capabilities with missile-computer-guided delivery mechanisms that threaten global peace. The Chinese successful missile target on a spacecraft in orbit demonstrates this view further. The initial agreement that space must be demilitarized and strictly used for peaceful means and the US effort to develop a Nuclear Defense shield are all pointers to a cyberspace with serious global strategic concerns.

It is generally recognized that the US and other Developed Countries will continue to posses the political, economic, military and technological advantage. How the global powers distribute opportunities for emerging economies to play their role will be a matter of concern in the future. China’s current exclusion from the WTO and the stringent requirement for her entry that grossly impact her domestic political configuration is an example. China like India understands their domestic agenda and their emerging global position as well as emerging domestic challenges. With a population of 1.3billion people of whom 100 million have internet access and 300 million mobile subscribers, we are talking of an emerging consumer market in China. The Chinese leaders understand the strategic threat China presents to the US in terms of its thirst for natural resources such as energy to oil their economies. China is building a technologically innovative labor force through education, the cost of production is relatively low and the liberal reforms in the economy have presented opportunities. But the state controlled cable media and internet is aimed at re-asserting the power of the state, cultural preservation and state stability and consolidation. To the human rights activists, this is violation of the freedom of speech and access to information but rights violation through internet content filtration, blogger registration is debatable. A lot of internet content is illegal in respect to national boundaries except where international conventions in regard to internet content have been ratified.

The US cultural onslaught on China through the internet, like any other nation of the world, is not entirely “innocent”. China’s model seems to work according to Chinese authorities and china is an investment destination today. Political reforms that we have seen in Africa have not provided the silver bullet in terms of economic development, resource distribution, security and stability contrary to China. Certainly the 100+ million internet community in China is good market for e-Commerce mainly for US corporations. Breaking in is good for the US. The US strategy to counter the emergency of China is the financial facilitation of India as a strategic counter weight. Certainly India has its traditional foe in Pakistan previously supported by Russia. From a strategic stand point China wants the regional leadership. The economy as well as its growing military capabilities is pointing in this direction. For now it’s a peaceful emergency with contradiction as exemplified by the military missile launch into space.

Experts still agree that the US with its decisive edge both in information and weapons technology will retain her lead position in the world for sometime. This perception among present and potential adversaries will continue to generate the pursuit of asymmetric capabilities against the US interests abroad. Adversaries will seek to undermine US infrastructure such as communication, transportation, financial transactions, energy networks which are vulnerable to electronic attacks and information operations. These attacks are likely to be delivered by computer networks rather than using conventional munitions as the affinity for cyber attacks and skills of US adversaries evolve. Cyber attacks will provide US adversaries with new strategic options with prospects of anonymity. These trends may not result into an out-right fragmentation of the internet in the immediate future. Much as China is building an internal network; “The Next Carrying Network” or CN2, it is not yet time to cry. China’s long term vision is clear: an Internet that feels free and acts an engine for economic progress yet in no way threatens the Communist Party’s hold on to power. The current trend is only reflective of how powerful countries refashion the global network to suit themselves but largely living the traditional net relevant to those who need it.

Bibliography:

http://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/3a/3a_3.htm

http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/70385.htm

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/21/46FEtrouble_1.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1367249/posts