Editorial Team/Staff Writers
🔴 Claim
On July 1, the World Bank released its latest annual country income classifications, again listing Uganda among low-income countries. The classification revives a claim President Yoweri Museveni made in his June 7, 2022, State-of-the-Nation Address, when he told Parliament that Uganda had reached middle-income status, citing a GDP per person of $1,046—above what he described as the $1,036 threshold.
🔴 Background
Since the claim was made, it has been repeated by government officials: Former Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija repeated it in the 2024–2025 budget speech. The UNDP also repeated it in March 2024. And Mr Museveni repeated it last year, saying: “Here the size of Uganda’s economy is now $61 billion by the exchange rate method and $174 billion by the purchasing power parity method. Given our population, which is about 45 million Ugandans, we are no longer a least developed country. We are now a lower-middle-income country.” Officially, it seems, Uganda is a middle-income country.
🔴 What OJ-UGANDA checked
- The World Bank’s classification—since investors and international organisations quote the World Bank
- Whether the UN has removed Uganda from the list of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) on which Uganda was first placed in 1971. All LDCs are low-income nations
- Whether the IMF considers Uganda a lower-middle-income country
🔴 What we found
- Since the claim was made in 2022, all World Bank income classifications for Uganda suggest it is a low middle-income country, not a lower-middle-income economy. That means Uganda’s Gross National Income per person is less than the Bank’s threshold of $1,175. This threshold is not fixed, and the Bank used it for 2025. GNI per person means the income earned by a country’s people and businesses in a year, divided by its population. The Bank calculates GNI per person using the Atlas methodology. It does not measure GDP per person, as Uganda does.
- OJ-UGANDA found that Uganda is still on the list of Least Developed Countries even though the UN announced in March 2024 that Uganda had met the requirements to be classified as a lower-middle-income country. This discrepancy is partly explained by the fact that Uganda still has to be assessed. The UN trade and development agency, which manages the list, sets the threshold for inclusion at $1,088 or below. The income criterion is based on a three-year average estimate of the GNI per person, not GDP per person. Every three years a committee reviews the list to recommend countries that should be removed after making good progress and those that should be retained or added to the list. The criterion is based mainly on income and the human assets index, which measures progress in health and education. At the 2024 review, Uganda was found to have met the graduation thresholds—but it can only be removed from the list if it does well at the next review in 2027.
- The IMF still considers Uganda a low-income country (pdf) which would not be the case if it had transitioned to a lower-middle-income status.
🔴 Verdict
- The claim is misleading.
🔴 Conclusion
There is no evidence from institutions that independently classify countries’ income categories to support the claim that Uganda graduated to lower-middle-income status. The government used a methodology that the World Bank does not agree with. The World Bank’s classification is key because it is internationally recognised and determines whether Uganda receives loans and grants as a low-income country or as a lower-middle-income country. Both the World Bank and the IMF still consider Uganda a low-income country.
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