40 Middle East & Africa The Economist January 8th 2022
ics and Anthony Venables of Oxford Uni
versity. So tight is this straitjacket that Mi
chael Ross of the University of California
found that among 38 big oil exporters, nei
ther good government nor democracy has
any solid relation with diversification. The
only thing that correlates is having less oil.
Yet it is too easy to blame economics
alone. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our
stars but in ourselves,” quips Herbert
M’cleod, who is based in Sierra Leone for
the International Growth Centre, a re
search outfit. Governments often spend
windfalls from commodities on fat sala
ries rather than investing them in infra
structure or education. They are “eating
the future”, laments Paul Collier of Oxford
University. All too often when cash is tight,
politicians try to renegotiate existing deals
to get more tax, or simply grab mining or
oil companies. “Let’s own the minerals
ourselves,” muses Jacob Jusu Saffa, the
chief minister (ie, primeminister)ofSierra
Leone, in frustration atthelackofrevenue.
“Let’s own the companies.”Yettheresultof
state ownership is usuallyidleorunprofit
able mines and angryinvestorswhotake
their money and skills elsewhere.
Often overlooked is the reality that
some politicians simplydonotwanttodi
versify. Money from oiltendstogothrough
state coffers, where greedyhandscanskim
it off. Politically connectedbigwigsoften
benefit in other ways too,saysRabahArez
ki, a former chief economistattheAfrican
Development Bank. In many cases im
ports, which tend tojump duringcom
modity booms, are controlledbya fewbig
players. If there is littlecompetitionfrom
domestic producers, theycan bumpup
prices and gouge ordinaryfolk.Aslongas
they share some of thiswealthwiththeir
friends in politics, thegovernmentwilldo
little to encourage localproduction.Inany
case, creating, say, a clothing industry
from scratch is slow, sothereislittlerea
son for politicians to putintheeffortif the
credit will be claimed bytheirsuccessors.
Even so, it is possibleforgovernments
to manage their commoditiesbetter.One
basic principle, especiallyforthingslike
oil and minerals that willrunout,istoturn
riches in the ground intoothersourcesof
wealth, such as roads oraneducatedpopu
lation. The World Banknowarguesthat,
even if countries cannotdiversifytheirex
ports, they will still bemakingprogressif
they diversify their sourcesofwealth.
Sierra Leone’s government is taking
note. It now spends about21%ofitsbudget
on education, up from13%in2017.Asa re
sult, more youngsters arepassingtheirfi
nal exams than ever before.Miningbegan
in Sierra Leone about acenturyago.“Ifwe
had invested in humans for ahundred
years,” sighs David MoininaSengeh,the
education minister, “we wouldbe in a
much better place today.”nUgandaThe birds and the
“be quiet”
I
n 2016 ugandanofficialsburstinto the
halls of Green Hill Academy, a highly re
garded primary school in Kampala, Ugan
da’s capital. They were on a curious mis
sion. The minister for ethics and integrity
had ordered them to seize copies of Jacque
line Wilson’s “Love Lessons”, a book about
how a 14yearold girl called Prudence falls
in love with her art teacher. Conservative
Ugandans threw a fit, fretting that “erotic”
and “distorted” books were brainwashing
their children. Within months all forms of
sex education were banned. Last Novem
ber a court lifted the parliamentary ban
and gave the education ministry home
work—to write a new policy on how it will
teach children about sex.
The court case was not without surpris
es. Ismail Mulindwa, a senior official in the
ministry, argued that teaching young peo
ple about sex could lead them to mastur
bate or become homosexual. (Presumably
he thought these were bad things.) Conser
vative views on sex education start at the
top. President Yoweri Museveni and his
wife Janet, the minister of education, have
long promoted celibacy as the best way to
prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
Both are against condoms, arguing they
promote promiscuity. And the first lady
seems to think that contraceptive pills not
only fail to prevent pregnancy but also
erode morals, turning Ugandans into sex
crazed people who “have sex, take pills,
conceive and abort”. Ignorance is risky. Though deaths from
aids, a disease caused by the hiv virus,
have fallen sharply, partly because many
people with it are now getting treated, the
virus is still a big cause of death in Uganda.
Less than half of young Ugandans know
how to avoid catching hivwhile having
sex. Few seem to know much about contra
ception either. Around a quarter of teenage
girls are pregnant or already have a child.
Some 15% are married by the age of 15;
around half have tied the knot by 18.
These alarming figures have been exac
erbated by the government’s blundering
response to covid19. It shut schools at the
start of the pandemic almost two years ago
and is only reopening them this month. By
June last year the teenagepregnancy rate
had jumped by 17% from March 2020.
Officials drafting the new policy could
perhaps learn from past mistakes. An earli
er framework in 2018 suggested lifting the
ban on sex education. However, it also sug
gested teaching children that the best way
of not catching hivis not to have sex. It
barely mentioned contraception. All it said
about masturbation was that no one
should do it. Its only reference to gay sex
was the name of the law banning it.
The framework mentioned God 62
times and made “Godfearing” its main
guiding principle. Yet some pious folk
were still not satisfied. Some Muslims felt
the policy was too Christian; some Chris
tians thought it was not conservative
enough. The Reverend Stanley Ntagali, the
archbishop of the Anglican Church of
Uganda, denounced the framework as part
of the “un’s propromiscuity, progay, pro
abortion sexual agenda”. A coalition of reli
gious leaders agreed on only one thing: to
reject the policy altogether.
Officials drafting the new framework
might consider what has worked else
where. unesco has foundthat teaching
young people about condoms is far more
effective at curbing pregnancies, hivand
other sexually transmitted diseases than
only teaching them abstinence. A better
framework should also try to help young
people avoid exploitative or violent rela
tionships, says Rose Wakikona of the Cen
tre for Health, Human Rights and Develop
ment, a Ugandan nonprofit organisation
that brought the case that overturned the
ban. She describes a separate case of a
nineyearold rape victim, who testified
that a man “slept on her” because she was
unable to describe the act.
Education is a start, but it is only one
piece of the puzzle. Some 28% of married
Ugandan women who want to use contra
ceptives cannot get them, making Ugan
da’s “unmet need” for contraception high
er than the average for subSaharan Africa,
where 25% still donotget it. It is not just
the education ministrythat has plenty of
homework to finish.nA court unbans sex education