By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Oct 31 2006 (IPS)

During the next four years, Belgium will provide Rwanda with about 168 million dollars worth of development aid. This sum is to be spread among various sectors, with agriculture and health receiving priority. About 74.4 million dollars has been allocated for the development of agriculture, and some 48 million dollars for the health sector.

Belgian Cooperation and Development Minister Armand De Decker was in the Great Lakes region of Africa earlier this month, visiting Rwanda and Burundi, two of his country’s 18 foreign aid recipients.

In the Rwandan capital, Kigali, De Decker met with Rosemary Museminali, Rwanda’s junior secretary in charge of cooperation, with whom he chaired the joint Belgian-Rwandan committee that established the aid programme between the two countries for 2007-2010.

The committee’s last session was held in 2004, when Rwanda and Belgium adopted the first Indicative Aid Programme (Programme indicatif de cooperation, PIC). The programme was spread over three years (2004-2006), and funded with about 90 million dollars.

The PIC is based on Kigali’s development policy, specified in a document titled ‘Vision 2020’, which was written in 2002 and lays out a view of Rwandan society over the next 15 years. The goals of this programme were complemented that same year with a Poverty Reduction Strategy Document (Document de stratégie de réduction de la pauvreté), which aims to reduce the number of destitute Rwandans by 2015.

During his visit, De Decker expressed satisfaction with the development strategies established by Rwandan authorities. “It’s the reason why we renewed our financial support…” he explained on allAfrica.com, an internet news site.

“We’re convinced that our support for Rwanda’s efforts can help the country reach its objectives in fighting poverty and improving its population’s living conditions,” he added.

In mostly rural Rwanda, one of Africa’s most densely populated states, more than half the population is poor, according to the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Rural development, education and good governance are also expected to be priority areas as concerns the Belgian aid package.

“Belgium’s financial assistance comes at a time when Rwanda is fighting poverty and trying to improve quality of life for its people. The targeted beneficiary sectors are very important for the Rwandan economy,” said an article in ‘The New Times’, a government-aligned Rwandan daily.

“Agriculture, which is the economy’s backbone, needs to be completely modernised. The priority should be to set up model farms, where small farmers can learn about new agricultural techniques,” the newspaper added.

A Belgian coalition of non-governmental organisations, ‘11.11.11’, has expressed satisfaction with Belgium’s level of support to Rwanda, but is demanding more open discussions with Kigali on the subject of human rights, democracy and good governance. The group voiced its approval of the fact that Belgium did not opt for direct aid to the Rwandan government, since it believes rights and governance should first be the object of a deeper dialogue between the two countries.

Nearly a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by Hutu extremists during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Twelve years later, “the country no longer has a lot in common with the one that existed just after the genocide”, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which this month published a guide to generate investor interest in the Central African country.

“Rwanda has made great socioeconomic progress and submitted its economy to broad structural reforms,” noted UNCTAD. As regards agriculture, coffee and tea – Rwanda’s main exports – but also horticulture, floriculture and other plant-related sectors yet to be developed, are presented as some of the country’s assets.

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