Key messages:

• Agricultural contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) has been declining in Uganda, but early structural transformation has helped create a shift in employment mainly to services employment. In 2010/11 the service sector accounted for 92% of all new wage-employment opportunities.
• About 70% of the enterprises operating in Uganda in 2013 were established after 2000. These enterprises employ nearly three-quarters of the measured total workforce, with private, non-agricultural wage employment experiencing one of the fastest growth rates in Africa.
• Rural households are increasingly diversifying activities, accessing new markets and thereby growing their productivity and incomes – evidence that the path to economic transformation and productive formal employment can start with rural households.
• Poverty has fallen substantially, from more than half of the population living in poverty in 1992 to just below 20% in 2012.

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Authors

Bruce Byiers Head of African Institutions and Regional Dynamics Programme