1. INTRODUCTION i. Uganda is one of the pioneering countries to accede to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) at its inception in 2003. The APRM was created as a result of the Abuja Declaration (9 March 2003) as an instrument for self -and peer- assessment of policies and practices in the fields of political, economic, corporate governance and socio-economic development. ii. This report considers governance of Uganda in the following four areas: ? Democracy and good political governance ? Economic governance and management ? Corporate governance ? Socio-economic development. 2. DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE 1 I. The APRM, as a system, is premised on the conviction that the quality of democracy and political governance in a country determines its socio-economic development prospects. Since its 2008 APRM review, Uganda has shown its commitment to international and regional standards of governance as was demonstrated by its ratification and domestication of several of these standards. The country has also made significant progress in institutionalising mechanisms to promote constitutional democracy, protect the political, economic and socio–cultural rights of its people, and especially the vulnerable groups in society. Uganda has also established institutions and enacted legislation to combat corruption. However, a number of standards remain unratified and, in some cases, the domestication of ratified standards also requires a lot more work. What is encouraging is that, as can be seen from the focus on governance in Uganda Vision 2040, the Government remains committed to the cause of good governance for the long haul. ii. At the same time, CSAR 2017 as well as our own research and consultations with the Ugandan public on the ground reveal that Uganda still faces a number of important challenges, both old and new, which we have grouped into four broad categories: ? Fair competition for political power, which includes such related issues as the levelling of the playing field as between the different political parties; respect for the Rule of Law and constitutional supremacy; equitable funding of political parties; and electoral processes and the independence of the Electoral Commission; ? A dominant executive and weak systems of checks and balances, which includes such related issues as the independence of the judiciary and the legislature (i.e. to what extent these two are empowered administratively and financially to exercise their powers, including to counter or curb possible executive excesses), and independence of democracy-promoting institutions (are they empowered to exercise oversight on all three?); ? Management of diversity, including gender, ethnic groups, refugees, economic immigrants, and integration of foreigners in general; and ? The state of the public service, including its efficiency, level of decentralisation, responsiveness, accountability, etc. and the challenges facing anti-corruption institutions in the country. iii. These four issues are both critical to the state of democracy and political governance in Uganda today but also cut across the objectives of the thematic area as articulated in the APRM Objectives, Standards, Criteria and Indicators document, which remains a useful guide in the preparation of this report. iv. Uganda laid down the ground rules for fair competition for political power in its constitution of 1995 and has become a committed player at the continental and global levels by subscribing to standards and codes of a constitutive nature, such as the NEPAD Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the African Charter on Democracy,