General
Ambassador Marantis delivers public lecture on Trade and Investment
“Thank you very much for welcoming me to Makerere University. I am here today as Deputy United States Trade Representative representing President Obama’s Administration on my first trip to Uganda.” Remarked Ambassador Demetrios Marantis as he kicked off his Public Lecture on U.S. – Africa Trade and Investment in the 21st Century, held at the Food Science and Technology Conference Hall on February 16th 2010.
“Thank you very much for welcoming me to Makerere University. I am here today as Deputy United States Trade Representative representing President Obama’s Administration on my first trip to Uganda.” Remarked Ambassador Demetrios Marantis as he kicked off his Public Lecture on U.S. – Africa Trade and Investment in the 21st Century, held at the Food Science and Technology Conference Hall on February 16th 2010.
He intimated that this trip was a culmination of a twenty year journey, which began while, he was researching a paper on philanthropic foundations and the development of higher education in Africa focused on Makerere University. The Ambassador could not hide his sense of fulfillment at finally visiting this center of excellence, which groomed many African leaders like Presidents Mwai Kibaki and Joseph Kabila including former President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. However, he could not help but reveal that his mind was full of questions about the future of trade and investment between Africa and the United States, which formed the basis of his trip.
Talking about the opportunities created by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) , Ambassador Marantis couldn’t help but notice that over the last eight years, U.S.-sub-Saharan African trade had more than doubled, a feat he hoped would improve even further with the establishment a regional American trade competitiveness hub in Nairobi ; funded by USAID, where Ugandans can receive AGOA-related training and technical assistance.
Referring to the challenges faced in the past, especially the global economic crisis, the Ambassador offered his assurance “I am committed to working with you to get things right. Together we can find the right economic policies, the right trade policies, and the right solutions for Uganda’s and America’s mutual prosperity.” He also mentioned his participation in the first-ever council meeting under the U.S.-East African Community (EAC) Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) the previous day, which he hoped would deepen U.S. economic engagement and cooperation with Uganda and the other four members of the EAC.
After His Excellency’s remarks, Prof. Ddumba-Ssentamu, who chaired the Question and answer session thanked the Ambassador for his commitment to putting in place policies that would foster development, and reiterated that indeed, Trade and Investment were the way forward for Africa and Uganda in particular in as far as achieving economic growth was concerned.
Reacting to questions about the American Government continuing to offer subsidies to its farmers while on the other hand promoting AGOA and doing nothing tangible to help Uganda farmers actually diversify their exports, Ambassador Marantis admitted that AGOA had indeed registered as many challenges as it had successes. He acknowledged that one of these was the competitiveness of African products versus those from Asia, which have a lower cost of production and transportation. However, he emphasized that AGOA is only one such initiative of the American Government, with others aimed at different sectors like Transportation and Health.
With Uganda’s diversity of wildlife and unique climate in mind, a student from the Faculty of Economics and Management wanted to know what policies were in place to help Uganda profit from tourism. In response Ambassador Marantis revealed that he had only learnt that Uganda had unique tourist activities like gorilla trekking , mountain climbing and white water rafting after visiting for the first time. As such, he stressed that Uganda as a country needs to a better job of marketing itself on the tourism front so as to fully exploit this almost untapped sector.
A discussant who admitted to not hearing a lot about investment from the Ambassador’s talk was curious as to how the U.S. trade and investment strategy would eventually map out. The Ambassador used this opportunity to stress the goal of the TIFA, which was to enable Investors in the U.S. become aware of trade and investment opportunities, while at the same time helping its EAC counterparts to learn of American opportunities. He however noted that this was also based on the African countries creating an overall climate that is friendly to trade. He cited the example of the US-Rwanda Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) , signed in 2008 after favorable conditions of investment had been put in place by the Rwandan Administration.
The session got livelier, with the Ambassador appreciating the brilliance of the audience as he was often awed by the Students’ comments and questions. He however, urged the students to exploit the opportunities offered by Makerere University so that they could provide the much needed capacity in terms of policy making and implementation. He also counseled that it was not up to the U.S. to decide Africa’s path. He opined that Africa needed to identify its potential strengths, prioritize them, and exploit them fully so as to benefit from opportunities like AGOA. He discouraged the concept of “protectionalism” noting that countries like Vietnam were only able to experience exponential growth, after opening up their economies fully, and providing a conducive environment for investment. When put to task as to why American researchers and companies went ahead to patent those products manufactured as a result research done in Africa, which made accessing them expensive eventually, the Ambassador had to admit that whereas it was a delicate issue to deal with, there had been gradual progress made at striking a balance between not patenting so that that the eventual products are cheaper and patenting so that research-based companies and organizations might benefit from their investments.
Prof Ikoja-Odongo, who represented the Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba , thanked Ambassador Demetrios Marantis for delivering his inaugural lecture at Makerere and admitted that though it was a lively debate, the Ambassador was more at the receiving end of questions that should have been directed at Ugandan policy and decision makers. He concluded the lecture by encouraging the students to take on the Ambassadors challenge and become the much-needed professionals that they demand of this country. “Empowerment should enable you to go back to your community and put into practice what you learnt for the benefit the people” he said.
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The Gender Mainstreaming Directorate (GMD), Makerere University on 14th September 2021 presented findings from phase one of the study on Enhancing Women’s Participation and Visibility in Leadership and Decision-Making Organs of Public Universities in Uganda through Action Research. The study team led by the Director GMD and Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. Euzobia Mugisha Baine also consists of Assoc. Prof. Consolata Kabonesa, Dr. Anna Ninsiima, Ms. Frances Nyachwo, Ms. Susan Mbabazi and Mr. Eric Tumwesigye.
The team is also made of coordinators from participating Universities such as Busitema University-Ms. Elizabeth Birabwa, Kabale University-Sr. Dr. Eva Tumusiime, Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST)-Dr. Specioza Twinamasiko, Muni University-Ms. Amandru Stella Wawa, and Gulu Univeristy-Sr. Rosalba Aciro.
Funded by the Government of Uganda through the Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund (Mak-RIF), the study was inspired by the fact that women are persistently few in numbers as staff, more so in leadership and decision-making organs of Ugandan Public Universities. “This is despite all the various efforts at national and international levels; the numbers are not growing as fast as needed to meet development goals of the country” explained Dr. Euzobia.
Based on this background, the study team therefore sought to conduct a situational analysis of the gender terrain of the six public universities to obtain baseline information encompassing the composition of governance and leadership organs and senior staff by sex, as well as a needs assessment and profiles of potential mentors and mentees.
Furthermore, the team sought to explore the capacity to conduct gender-responsive research as well as the role of male staff engagement in gender equity interventions within the universities as the drivers of development.
Dr. Mugisha-Baine shared that results of the baseline would then be used to design participatory training manuals or guides on gender and leadership. The manuals would cover; Institutionalized mentorship, How to conduct gender-responsive research, gender and equity budgeting, among others.
“Within these manuals, we shall have a male staff engagement strategy in gender equity interventions in universities” she explained.
The development of the aforementioned materials would then be followed by their adoption and use to build capacity for women not only in leadership of participating and other public university but also beyond. “We shall periodically evaluate whether the capacity we have built has influenced women’s participation in leadership and decision-making organs of the university” supplemented the PI.
The capacity building trainings for women, it is envisaged, will lay the foundation for the formation of a functional Uganda University Women’s Think Tank, starting with the six participating universities. Dr. Mugisha Baine added that through this Think Tank, a monitoring and tracking system for gender representation in recruitment, promotion, retention/turnover and leadership of public universities shall be established and maintained.
At the conclusion of phase one, the study team had drafted participatory training manuals in gender and leadership with content on; gender specific critical analysis of the leadership spectrum of public universities, positioning of individual women within the institutional framework and strategies for their advancement, gender equity advocacy in the university setting, institutional mentorship, building capacity in conducting gender-responsive research, among others.
“This content will be validated by the participating universities before the actual research training is conducted” added the PI.
On behalf of the research team, Dr. Mugisha Baine thanked the Government of Uganda for providing the resources that facilitated phase one of the study and prayed that the Mak-RIF Grants Management Committee (GMC) would support the next phase of capacity building.
Speaking on behalf of the Mak-RIF GMC Chairperson, Prof. William Bazeyo, Dr. Helen Nambalirwa Nkabala thanked and congratulated the team led by the Director GMD upon the milestones registered in the critical research.
“We are very proud of that work that is being done by all researchers in Mak-RIF and we would like to most sincerely thank Management for all the support throughout this process” she remarked.
Dr. Nkabala encouraged the research team to continue disseminating and using the findings for the furtherance of gender mainstreaming, particularly through the aspect of male staff engagement in gender equity interventions.
Prior to delivering the keynote address of the day, the Executive Director National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) Prof. Mary Okwakol thanked the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe for inviting her to the important forum, noting that women’s participation in decision making and governance is a priority area of the Uganda Gender Policy 2007.
She commended Makerere University for being at the forefront of gender mainstreaming in Uganda, noting that this prominence was one of the reasons why the Gender in Education Policy 2007 provides for replicating the institution’s strategy in all other Higher Education Institutions.
Prof. Okwakol whose keynote address was punctuated incisive personal examples reaffirmed the statistics that women are generally not visible in leadership of Universities. That notwithstanding, in instances where they rise to leadership and decision-making positions, they are regularly subject to roles traditionally deemed as women’s inconsiderate of their managerial seniority and experience.
She nevertheless rallied the women to play their respective roles in enhancing participation and visibility at a personal level. The following were some of the strategies she proposed; work hard to acquire academic credentials so as to compete favourably with men, acquire necessary administrative training and experience, network among women, join professional networks as well as do research and publish.
On joining professional networks, she shared her personal experience as a young zoologist who joined UNESCO’s Tropical Biology and Fertility Programme. “Within a short time I was appointed Coordinator for Africa and after two years, I was elected as a Member of the International Board of Management. After serving for two years, I became Vice Chairperson of that Board and finally I became Chairperson of that International Board.”
At the institutional level, Prof. Okwakol appealed to the Chairperson Council and Vice Chancellor to proactively recruit women who meet the requirements for leadership positions even if it means actively seeking out the reluctant ones. In this regard, she shared that it would be useful for the university to develop a database of women and their qualifications to ease this process.
She shared that NCHE has in recognition of female underrepresentation at every level in Higher Education approved the establishment of a Gender and Equity Unit with the aim of promoting inclusive gender participation in the sub-sector.
“This unit has been placed under the Directorate of Quality Assurance and Accreditation which implies that as we look out for and regulate quality, gender will be a very important aspect of that regulation” she reassured.
Prof. Okwakol concluded by urging participants to read the; Third National Development Plan (NDPIII), Uganda Vision 2040, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) noting that there is no way all three can be achieved while women are left behind because they each make a case for inclusion of the female gender.
“What we are addressing here are historical injustices” said Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe as he commenced his remarks, “And in the case of Makerere University, it is well known that the institution started as a male-only institution and we all know the original motto was ‘Let us be men’” he added.
Citing examples from history such as; Marie Curie – one of the smartest physicists, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and Cleopatra – prominent Pharaohs of Egypt, George Eliot, Rosa Luxemburg and Hypatia – all great philosophers as well as Chancellor Angela Merkel – first female Chancellor of Germany, the Vice Chancellor said there is no plausible argument that there are things women cannot do as well as their male counterparts.
He said it was against this knowledge and in a bid to correct historical injustices that Makerere University pioneered initiatives such as putting in place affirmative action for girls, establishing a Gender Mainstreaming Directorate as well as a School of Women and Gender Studies. The Vice Chancellor nevertheless stressed the need to go beyond pioneering to protecting these gains through legislation. “Historically we have seen that discrimination can only be addressed by laws and policies.”
Prof. Nawangwe thanked the Government for providing funds to support Mak-RIF as well as the Funds GMC and Secretariat for ensuring that these funds are put to good use. He equally thanked the Chairperson of Council, Mrs. Lorna Magara for her not only her support but also sparing time to attend a good number of the research dissemination events.
Delivering the concluding remarks, Mrs. Magara acknowledged that the study was timely and relevant the contemporary University, as one of the critical drivers of the national and international development agenda. She therefore reechoed the Vice Chancellor’s thanks to the Government of Uganda for generously supporting the University’s research through Mak-RIF.
Turning to the keynote speaker she said, “I thank Prof. Okwakol for ardently discussing the critical issues affecting the female gender, the strategies to overcome the challenges, including sharing her inspiring personal experiences.”
Mrs. Magara equally thanked Prof. Okwakol for her very instructional analysis, providing mentorship guidance with the resultant impact of enhancing the female gender in decision-making positions. In the same breath she congratulated the PI and her team upon successfully concluding phase one of the project.
“Phase one has generated insights in understanding the status of women in leadership in public universities, the legal and policy framework and its implications on women’s visibility, the institutional mentoring systems and the gaps therein” she observed.
The Chairperson of Council acknowledged that the challenge of underrepresentation of women in leadership roles cannot be resolved at an individual level. She therefore advocated for broad based strategies that can address deep-seated structural and cultural biases facing women. “These include developing mentorship networks, enacting laws and policies that address the imbalances and providing training programmes to address the leadership gaps.”
She therefore pledged the University Council’s unwavering support to the Gender Mainstreaming Programme by ensuring an enabling policy environment that facilitates gender-responsive teaching, learning, research innovation and community service.
The research dissemination was moderated by the Principal Public Relations Officer (PRO), Ms. Ritah Namisango and the Director Communications, Learning and Knowledge Management, ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) and PRO Mak-RIF, Ms. Harriet Adong.
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