Uganda's fast growth, which hasaveraged more than 7 percent during the past two decades,has helped reduce poverty the proportion of people living inpoverty in the early 1990s has declined to less than half,from 56 percent to 24.5 percent by 2010. However, thereduction in poverty was uneven, and in some cases, povertyincreased and inequality persists between and withinregions. Partly driven by the uneven reduction in poverty,persistent inequality, and rising unemployment, Ugandanauthorities have raised concern about the inclusiveness ofUganda's development. New programs, includingprosperity for all, are being undertaken by the governmentto raise the incomes of households and, hence, close theincome gap. Many developing countries are facing the samechallenge of reducing spatial differences in livingstandards. The structural transformation that takes place ascountries grow from low to high incomes is accompanied withprosperity in a few places, as has been observed from thehistory of many developed countries, and is being repeatedin many developing ones, such as China, India, Indonesia,and Sri Lanka. This note is organized into six sections.Section two outlines the geography of living standards.Section three describes the transformation that has alreadyhappened in the geography of production and how it relatesto the geography of living standards. Section four analyzeshow the fluidity of two important markets in labor and landshould contribute to Uganda's transformation and wherethe constraints to increased fluidity could be. A strategyfor connecting people to prosperity is presented in sectionfive. And finally, section six concludes with the summary of recommendations.
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