A return to the resource curse or a path to development? Oil in Uganda

Within the next five years, Uganda will become one of Africa’s largest oil producers, and will rank amongst the world’s top 50. Given the negative relationship between oil and development witnessed across the African continent, one could assume oil will hinder, rather than help, Uganda. This project explores the relationship between resource endowment and underdevelopment, often known as the resource curse, and puts this paradoxical relationship into the Ugandan context. There is little telling how oil will influence the state, yet it is evident that if Uganda wishes to become successful than it must learn from the mistakes of others, and address the fundamental causes of the resource curse. Although many have already written Uganda off as the next resource failure, this project takes a more neutral approach and suggests that Uganda is in fact not necessarily doomed.