Andrew Mujuni Mwenda

Andrew Mujuni Mwenda is the radio manager of 93.3 Monitor FM, the first all-news all-talk FM radio in eastern Africa, owned by Monitor Publications Limited, the publishers of The Monitor newspaper in Kampala. He also host a program called Andrew Mwenda Live every weekday (Monday to Friday) from 7-8pm East Africa Standard Time on the radio. It is a current affairs show with a strong policy bias that features political and business leaders, military and security chiefs and analysts, civil society activists, academics and diplomats.He wrote commentaries, analyses and opinions for The Monitor newspaper on issues ranging from economic policy debates to security and military issues, politics and corruption etc.

During his time as a reporter and radio show host, he covered many stories on interaction of economic policy reform advocated by donors and government's own desire to use the reform process to consolidate its hold on power; and had valuable interviews and discussions with key policy makers, policy beneficiaries and those hurt by the policies. He intends to utilize my time here at Leiden to write a paper on this subject.

During his career as a reporter he covered armed conflict in northern Uganda and gotten valuable access to key decision making processes. His specific interest has been the economics of that conflict (co-authored a paper with Roger Tangri of ISS on military corruption and politics in Uganda which will be published in the Review of Africa Political Economy in January 2004). He intends to write a paper on how vested interests within the military, and donors desire to use Uganda as a case study of the success of their aid programs and liberal policies in Africa have converged to sustained and at times promote armed conflict in northern Uganda, and helped export this to neighboring countries e.g. Rwanda, Sudan and Congo.