This course analyzes the conditions and causes of poverty within the Uganda and the variety of economic, social, and political responses to poverty which have occurred in recent decades. The bewildering number of anti-poverty programs that have been tried in the last 20 years underscores the extent of disagreement about the causes of poverty, the situation of the poor, and the role of the government in encouraging income redistribution and social change. The first part of the course explores the problem of poverty, including a discussion of various causal theories about poverty and the underlying implications of these theories. The second part of the course analyzes specific problems and policy proposals, with particular attention to the most recent round of legislative reforms in anti-poverty programs since the mid-1990s.
