The Ugandan government has opted out of a donor package set up for poor countries to ensure accelerated progress towards Universal Primary Education (UPE).

Local press reported on Thursday quoting a senior World Bank official as saying that Uganda requested to be left out of the initiative that allows developing countries with demonstrated commitment towards UPE to access more funds.

"It is not that Uganda has had any problems with donors," the official told the state-owned newspaper The New Vision in Libreville at the on-going Association for the Development of Education in Africa biennial meeting.

"Uganda requested to be left out of the Fast Track Initiative ( FTI) to protect her microeconomic stability. Not all donor money is good for the economy. The country must have the absorptive capacity and Uganda is trying to reduce its reliance on donor funds," said the official who preferred anonymity.

Ugandan Minister of Education and Sports Geraldine Bitamazire, who led the Ugandan delegation to Libreville, said the issue would be discussed at home.

She said Uganda had worked hard and was among the first countries to qualify for the initiative.

Uganda, which is behind schedule in meeting the Millennium Development Goal of having all children in school by 2015, was in 2002 selected among the first beneficiaries of the FTI but was dropped for unknown reasons.

From top priority countries, documents from the FTI secretariat now list Uganda among the nine poor countries whose date of endorsement for the program remains undetermined.

Abbey Spring, an official from the FTI secretariat at the World Bank offices in Washington DC had earlier told journalists that so far 83 million U.S dollars had been disbursed to nine developing countries under the FTI.

Source: Xinhua