Rwanda has been ranked first among 48 African countries that have registered substantial progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to ONE’s 2013 continental Data report.ONE is a campaign and advocacy organisation of more than three million people taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease.The survey was released yesterday at the sidelines of the 48th Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) currently underway in Marrakech, Morocco.The five-day meeting dubbed: "Africa’s structural transformation” focuses on the need for Africa to turn economic growth into shared and sustainable economic transformation within the next half century. It opened on Monday.According to the report, Rwanda and Mali top the list with 6.0 MDGs progress score, a track record that has been achieved in the last three years."Sub-Saharan African countries are showing excellent progress on average, among them are top performers such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Uganda, Benin and Burkina Faso,” reads part of the study.Since 2007, the Government of Rwanda has made achieving the MDGs fundamental to its policy framework. When the poverty eradication programme (EDPRS 2008-2012) came to an end, in February 2012, the government launched EDPRS II, which runs from 2013 to 2017.Within in the last five years Rwanda poverty reduced by 13 percent with one million Rwandans were lifted out of poverty.According to government officials, the progress was attainable partly because the government empowers every citizen to take the lead in their own community’s development.Optimistic The Government is very optimistic that by 2015, more MDG targets will be met.  Net primary school attendance has gone up from 86.6 per cent in 2005-2006 to 91.7 per cent in 2010-2011, boosted by the nine year free basic education implemented by the Government since 2010, according to UNDP MDGs Progress and the macroeconomic state of Rwanda, 2012.On realising this progress, the government launched the 12-year basic education programme in February 2012, to enhance net secondary school attendance. Maternal health has also considerably improved.The Data report titled "financing the Fight for Africa’s Transformation” states that despite the fact that regional countries are taking great strides in achieving the MDGs, large economies like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are failing in many areas and slowing down regional progress.The report adds: "30 countries in Africa have accelerated progress in the last three years on reaching the MDGs and 16 are on track to halve extreme poverty by 2015, but further momentum is at risk due to laggard countries where progress has stalled or gone into reverse.”According to the report Rwanda and Mali are followed by the Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda and Malawi in the second position with 5.5 MDGs progress score, while Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and Gambia occupy third position with 5.0 score.The survey ranked Zimbabwe and DRC as straggler countries where MDGs progress has stalled with 0.5 score.Speaking to The New Times shortly after the launch of the report,  Amb. Claver Gatete, the Minister for Finance and Economic Planning said Rwanda’s visionary leadership vision and commitment has indeed spearheaded the country’s progress in attaining the  MDGs. "When you have a country that has a vision and a long term strategy that implements the vision as well as a clear leadership, things happen. The leadership is the most crucial because it ensures that whatever has been decided is implemented,” Minister Gatete said.The ONE report campaign that tracks progress on MDGs and development financing in Africa shows wide inequalities in the continent’s anti-poverty goal progress.The survey that assesses the capacity of 48 nations states that extreme poverty has already been cut in half and can be virtually be eradicated by 2030.   Never the less, the report finds a clear link between African country investments in health, education, agriculture and improved MDG progress in those areas. According to Ben Leo, the ONE’s global policy director, the data is the only major study to rank countries on their overall progress on the MDGs and also assess the contribution that African countries’ own spending is having on their performance."The report examines the recent progress of individual countries against eight targets using MDG progress index,” he said.Dr. Sipho Moyo, ONE Africa Director said: "The progress we are seeing in these countries shows the multiplier effect that takes place when African countries go all out to invest significantly towards improving health, education and agriculture, resulting in considerable breakthroughs in the fight to end preventable diseases, ignorance and hunger. "What is even more exciting is the fact that 10 of the 30 countries have been rated among the world’s best performing countries. This, obviously, makes the Africa Union, which has just turned 50 years, very proud.”Rwanda last year hit the MDG target on child mortality, where the country reduced the death of children under the age of five, from 156 deaths per 1,000 children to 54 deaths per 1,000 children born annually, according to a report by UNICEF.

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