Xuma
JF-Expert Member
- Jul 14, 2010
- 683
- 196
Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy sent a text to his finance minister in the midst of negotiations on the terms of a bailout for Spain's banks. Urging him to hold out for a good deal, it said: "We're the number four power in Europe. Spain is not Uganda." The remark caused a storm of protest in Uganda and some ironic tweets pointing out Ugandan economic success. So how do the two countries compare?
distance apart 6,000 miles
Population
Spain 46.4m
Uganda 33.8m
Area
Spain 505,988 sq km (195,363 sq miles)
Uganda 241,038 sq km (93,072 sq miles)
Unemployment,
Spain 24% (2012 Q1)
Uganda 4.2% (2009)
GDP growth, 2010
Spain -0.1%
Uganda 5.2%
Main exports
Spain Machinery, motor vehicles, agricultural products, wine
Uganda Coffee, fish, tea, tobacco, cotton, corn, beans.
Life expectancy
Spain 79 years (men), 85 years (women)
Uganda 54 years (men), 55 years (women)
Gross national income per capita, 2010 (adjusted to reflect local living costs)
Spain $31,800
Uganda $1,250
Views from the street
Drama graduate Andres Granda, 27, who lives in Murcia, last week got a job in an ice cream parlour after more than a year of being unemployed.
"Every month I was unemployed it got harder. I was saying to myself 'Come on, you're 27 years old. You are wasting your youth.' Nearly all my friends who have jobs had to leave Murcia to get work. There are two kinds of moods in Spain now, depression and anger."
Amos Wekesa, 38, from Kampala, says: "Many of us have better lives than people in the West. Of course there are challenges like any country, but I feel like I was born in the right country. Uganda feels like a country on the up and more and more Western people are coming here to do business. It's also very beautiful, with 11% of the world's species of birds and more than half the world's mountain gorillas."
Tweets on the Rajoy text
[Spain is not Uganda] seems obvious. Only in Spain could we take heart from a rescue - more respect for Uganda, less for our politicians.
Patrick Smith, editor of newsletter Africa Confidential
"[The text message] connotes old-fashioned European thinking from almost the 19th Century, that there are all these different worlds within the world and Africa is out there, completely cut off and bumbling along. If you go to Africa today, there's a lot of people, many of them European, touting for business, trying to get in on the economic growth.
"The concern is that Uganda's growth is coming from too narrow a range of economic activity - the big hope is the two billion barrels of oil discovered in Bunyoro. But it's a developing economy and an entirely different ballgame from Europe, which is like the geriatric continent trying to manage old age gracefully, whereas Africa is young and growing fast."
Famous living people
Spain Tennis star Rafael Nadal, actress Penelope Cruz and novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Uganda Singer Michael Kiwanuka (UK-born to Ugandan parents), Nasa space scientist Kwatsi Alibaruho and President Yoweri Museveni
Source: BBC News - Spain is not Uganda. Discuss.
distance apart 6,000 miles
Population
Spain 46.4m
Uganda 33.8m
Area
Spain 505,988 sq km (195,363 sq miles)
Uganda 241,038 sq km (93,072 sq miles)
Unemployment,
Spain 24% (2012 Q1)
Uganda 4.2% (2009)
GDP growth, 2010
Spain -0.1%
Uganda 5.2%
Main exports
Spain Machinery, motor vehicles, agricultural products, wine
Uganda Coffee, fish, tea, tobacco, cotton, corn, beans.
Life expectancy
Spain 79 years (men), 85 years (women)
Uganda 54 years (men), 55 years (women)
Gross national income per capita, 2010 (adjusted to reflect local living costs)
Spain $31,800
Uganda $1,250
Views from the street
Drama graduate Andres Granda, 27, who lives in Murcia, last week got a job in an ice cream parlour after more than a year of being unemployed.
"Every month I was unemployed it got harder. I was saying to myself 'Come on, you're 27 years old. You are wasting your youth.' Nearly all my friends who have jobs had to leave Murcia to get work. There are two kinds of moods in Spain now, depression and anger."
Amos Wekesa, 38, from Kampala, says: "Many of us have better lives than people in the West. Of course there are challenges like any country, but I feel like I was born in the right country. Uganda feels like a country on the up and more and more Western people are coming here to do business. It's also very beautiful, with 11% of the world's species of birds and more than half the world's mountain gorillas."
Tweets on the Rajoy text
[Spain is not Uganda] seems obvious. Only in Spain could we take heart from a rescue - more respect for Uganda, less for our politicians.
Patrick Smith, editor of newsletter Africa Confidential
"[The text message] connotes old-fashioned European thinking from almost the 19th Century, that there are all these different worlds within the world and Africa is out there, completely cut off and bumbling along. If you go to Africa today, there's a lot of people, many of them European, touting for business, trying to get in on the economic growth.
"The concern is that Uganda's growth is coming from too narrow a range of economic activity - the big hope is the two billion barrels of oil discovered in Bunyoro. But it's a developing economy and an entirely different ballgame from Europe, which is like the geriatric continent trying to manage old age gracefully, whereas Africa is young and growing fast."
Famous living people
Spain Tennis star Rafael Nadal, actress Penelope Cruz and novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Uganda Singer Michael Kiwanuka (UK-born to Ugandan parents), Nasa space scientist Kwatsi Alibaruho and President Yoweri Museveni
Source: BBC News - Spain is not Uganda. Discuss.
