Identifying bottlenecks in public investment in Uganda

The Ugandan government has doubled its funding of public investments between 2011 and 2017, however, public investments remain plagued by inefficiencies that limit their contribution to value addition and GDP (Ayebare, forthcoming). Estimates from the World Bank in 2016 suggest that due to inefficiencies in public investment management in the preceding decade, every dollar put towards public investment generated only 0.8 dollars of economic activity (World Bank, 2016).

In recent years, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Uganda has dedicated considerable resources to enhancing the efficiency of public investment management, to understand how this has affected public investment outcomes, and areas for further improvement.

The first step in addressing the problem of inefficiencies in public investment policy is gaining a clear picture of bottlenecks in the lifespan of government projects. Taking stock of project details, including planning, allocation, disbursement, and implementation, can reveal where problems arise and suggest ways through which project implementation could improve, ultimately better fulfilling government development plans and improving economic growth opportunities.

In this project, we aim to leverage for analysis an already collected set of public investment project data provided by the Ugandan Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED). The MoFPED Project Analysis and Public-Investment Department (PAP) has carefully documented a wide range of project indicators for the projects in the Public Investment Plan (PIP). By utilising the detailed project data, we intend to provide the PAP with a quantitative assessment of project performance and actionable insights on reducing bottlenecks in public investment projects.