Rwanda and Finland last week committed to strengthening ties for mutual benefits and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Political Consultations as well as outlined avenues of cooperation going forward.

This was during a visit by Kai Sauer, Finland’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs.

In an interview with The New Times’ Collins Mwai, the minister highlighted cooperation opportunities, challenges that can be jointly addressed as well as what lies ahead for the two countries.

Finland has been said to have the investment capacity that Rwanda is seeking in various aspects, what would it take to match your capital and Rwandan opportunities?

Rwanda is becoming a hub in the region and the country is aiming at making a conducive business environment. We have been talking to people here and the message is broadly the same. The thing is that there is not much knowledge about Rwanda in Finland, as a next step is to have Rwanda reaching out to Finland. What we have proposed is formation of a delegation of representatives from the public and private sectors who we can invite and discuss and a business delegation from there can also come to Rwanda with potential of follow up investment.

It’s also said that Finland is one of the biggest coffee consumers, what are some market opportunities for Rwandan exports?

As Finland, we are not a very big market, we are about 5.5 million people, but we are a gateway to larger markets. Under normal circumstances, you would have access to the Russian Market, Nordic-Baltic Market (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden). In terms of products, we are big coffee consumers, you can find Rwandan coffee in Finland but it’s high end. We are also big consumers of tea. Tourism is another big area, people from Finland can afford high end travelling.

With regard to mining, we see Rwanda as a partner because the mining industry here needs to develop into a sustainable direction and we have some companies that are world leaders in sustainable clean mining. This also applies to Agriculture where you are quite ambitious. The same applies to services, such as IT and financial services.

We also envision you as a service provider for Finnish companies who want to be in the African region.

Several indexes have ranked Finland’s education system as one of the best in the world. For Rwanda, it’s a work in progress to build it to efficiency, any lessons the country could borrow?

To be honest, Finland had difficulties in creating the product that is its education model. While we are one of the best in the world, it is really difficult to take the Finnish system and replicate it in another country. It is a product we have developed for decades, the key to our success is teacher training. We have invested in teachers and teacher training, they are well trained, have a college degree and have to have a high social status.

There was a study in Finland asking the question, which profession you would like to marry as a spouse. The results were, doctors, lawyers and teachers. That shows you in what regard teachers are regarded in society. While they may not be as well paid as doctors or lawyers, they are reasonably well paid to attract the right talent and skill.

We do not have commodities or minerals, we have relied on gender equality, education and good governance.

Speaking of gender equality, how do you fare?

The impact of gender equality has been critical in the country. We started early to grant universal suffrage in 1906 (right to elect and be elected). That brought women involvement. During the Second World War when we were attacked by the Soviet Union, many men went to fight and women took over running different aspects of the country. After the war, when the country adopted industrialization, women played a big role. It is extremely important to have gender equality.

Currently, in our government which is a 5 party coalition, all parties are led by women including the Prime Minister.

Increasingly, a number of leading economies are in the process of building or implementing their strategies for Africa probably to have better outcomes from engagement, does Finland have one?

We hope to be realistic in our approach and do not try to overreach. We have our traditional development partners and we continue our work with them.

The new government which has been in place for about 1 and a half years has committed to launch a new Africa Strategy. The approach will be slightly different from before. We will not be looking at Africa only as a development partner, we will continue development work but are ready to diversify. We want to work with Africa as a partner on an equal footing with whom we can cooperate to address global problems. There are could of global issues that should be addressed that way, climate change, migration, refugees, terrorism among others which can be faced together.

We also would like to have the type of cooperation we envision with Rwanda on a larger scale.

I am optimistic with Rwanda in comparison to many other countries. We need to fight for multilateralism and rules based international order. Smaller countries like ours have to rely on that. These are the basic elements of this new approach. We are looking at finalizing this by January or February.

What prompted the visit and engagement with various Rwanda government agencies?

We have been observing Rwanda for quite some time and the country is moving in an interesting direction economically and politically. We have had common interests at multilateral levels such as Promoting Agenda 2030, fighting against climate change as well as commitment to crisis management and peacekeeping where Rwanda is 3rd largest contributor of troops to the UN.

We do not have a resident representation, we are represented from our embassy in Dar es Salaam, and so there was a need to create some human contact to create the desired cooperation. This was not the first step, there has been cooperation before.

We have had an extensive programme with Political Consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rwanda Development Board, a very impressive outfit, Metrological Institute where there is room for cooperation.

We also met the Minister of Environment which we have warm cooperation with.

What are your expectations from the MOU signed with the Rwandan Government last week?

We signed a Memorandum of Understanding to continue this political consultation, it is a beginning and it’s a commitment to have regular follow up. You have to be realistic in that if you are not present here and Rwanda is not present in Helsinki, you have to prioritize, pick a couple of areas and work on them and can cooperate at multilateral level.