Uganda, Oct. 20 -- Last week, we explored Buyende, a small poor village in the heart of Uganda, whose promise and potential remain unmet. In the last five years, the village has been connected to the main power grid, and a borehole pipes water to the main street.

But that progress is not the social-economic leap forward you expect or celebrate after four decades. On some measures the area has, in fact, not just stagnated but gone backwards.

Although a major artery through the middle of the country, the road from Kamuli to Buyende has never been tarmacked. By the time milk coolers were delivered four years ago, more than two decades after they were handed out in other districts in the cattle corridor, the local dairy industry had collaps...