Publication

This paper examines the politics of Uganda’s dairy sector. The authors first give a brief overview of the dairy sector and how it is organized. They sketch the analytical framework and their point of departure in the importance of the ruling coalition in explaining productive sector initiatives. They then give a summary of the ruling coalition and how it is related to the dairy sector. They further analyze the liberalization and in particular the privatization initiatives and how they were implemented. The privatization of the Dairy Corporation (DC) was dragged out for more than a decade due to the many complex interests at stake in the sector. The paper concludes by examining how a coalition of dairy farmers and traders succeeded in organizing and bargaining with the regulatory agency, achieving a gradual upgrading of the milk marketing chain.