Over the last 15 years, Uganda has achieved spectacular economic growth, thanks to the introduction of an enabling macro-economic environment and political stability. However, this economic growth has only recently manifested itself due to the fact that tremendous damage was done in the 1970s and early 1980s. Many Ugandans are still confronted with poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and a continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which the country's largely rural population depends.