Uganda has a population of over 41 million people as of 2017. It is comprised of various ethnic groups including the Baganda, Banyankole, Basoga, Bakiga and Iteso. The economy is largely dependent on agriculture and its related industries, which account for approximately one-third of the country’s GDP. Other important sectors include manufacturing, construction, transport and communication services. Uganda also benefits from foreign aid from countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. In terms of foreign relations, Uganda has strong ties with many African countries including Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. It also maintains diplomatic relationships with other nations around the world such as China, India and the United Kingdom. Politically, Uganda has a presidential system with a directly elected president as its head of state. The unicameral parliament consists of 296 members who are elected by popular vote for five-year terms. See militarynous for Uganda military and defense.
Yearbook 2017
Uganda. According to Countryaah.com, the National Party of National Resistance Movement (NRM) continued during the year with plans to change the constitution so that Yoweri Museveni, president since 1986, could stand for further terms. According to the constitution, a presidential candidate may be a maximum of 75 years, but Museveni will be 77 at the next presidential election, which will be held in 2021. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for frequently used acronyms and abbreviations related to as well as country profile of Uganda.
In July, 56 members of the opposition party Democratic Change (FDC), which is critical of constitutional changes of that kind, were arrested for participating in illegal meetings. In September, NRM MPs voted for the party to put forward a bill to erase the age limit for presidential candidates. However, the vote, which would have been held a week later, was postponed as opposition politicians managed to delay the negotiations so that the case was not heard during the day. A similar tactic was used at a later date when the six-hour debate was followed by the opposition preventing a vote by starting to sing the national anthem. Speaker Rebecca Kadaga was forced to adjourn the sitting after a fight broke out in the Chamber.
In addition to the opposition, some religious leaders and even factions within the NRM were critical of an abolished age limit. At the beginning of October, the bill was tabled in Parliament during a meeting attended by few opposition politicians. That so many were missing was either because they voluntarily stayed away in protest or because they were forbidden to attend. Protests also arose in several parts of the country, including in the city of Rukungiri in southwestern Uganda, where two people died when police with tear gas and rubber bullets dispelled protesters. Two days later, opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested and two other FDC representatives accused of causing the death of two protesters. They were charged a few days later for causing violence.
In December, Parliament finally voted in favor of a bill that would have abolished the age limit for presidents. At the same time, the rule limiting the number of terms to two was reintroduced, but this does not take effect until after the 202 presidential elections.
In April, the military announced that the forces sent to the Central African Republic to fight the rebel movement Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) would be taken home. According to the government, LRA leader Joseph Kony no longer posed any threat to Uganda. In June, Uganda pledged US $ 358 million in financial aid to fund the reception of refugees from the conflict-ridden neighboring South Sudan. In August, the number of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda was estimated to exceed 1 million. Of them, the vast majority were women and children. In September, a campaign was launched in which nearly 6 million children would be vaccinated against polio. The measure would prevent the disease from spreading from South Sudan and Congo-Kinshasa.
Physical characteristics
The territory, comprising almost half of Lake Victoria and crossed, in its southern section, by the line of the equator, consists of a plateau with average altitudes from 900 to 1500 m asl, gently sloping towards the center, where the basin is located of the Kyoga. Towards the West, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the plateau is bordered by the East African rift valley, with deep lake basins (Lake Edoardo and Lake Mobutu, formerly Lake Alberto) and high reliefs of volcanic origin (such as the Ruwenzori complex, which exceeds 5100 m). Volcanic hills also appear to the East, on the border with Kenya, where Mount Elgon reaches 4321 m. ● The climate is conditioned by the equatorial position and altitude: the rains are abundant (almost everywhere they exceed 1500 mm, with peaks above 2000 mm on the shores of Lake Victoria and on the sides of the hills), the constant temperature (around 20 ° C) and the dry season always has a limited duration. These climatic elements (with the addition that a large part of the territory of the Uganda is free from malaria, as the anopheles cannot withstand high altitudes) have created a very favorable condition for human activities. ● The abundance of precipitation has favored a rich hydrographic network, dominated by Nile which, with the name of Nile Victoria, comes out of the greater African lake and, after the Owen Falls, enters the Kyoga; subsequently it reaches the Mobutu Lake after the Kabalega waterfalls, leaves it with the name of Nile Albert and finally enters the territory of Sudan with the name of Bahr al-Gebel. ● The spontaneous vegetation features tunnel forests along rivers or on the shores of lakes, park forests in the plateau, high-altitude rainforests on the hills, wooded savannahs in the northern and eastern plains. Heavily modified by the action of man in the past, in ways that were sometimes depleted, it is now the subject of environmental policies aimed at enhancing the natural heritage, including tourism.