Africa climate change meeting begins as Rwanda scores in WB business ranking

This week, President Paul Kagame opened an Africa Climate Change Forum. According to his speech, the meeting which was organised by the London School of Economics (LSE) in partnership with the Government of Rwanda would bring insights and wisdom on how to deal with climate change which is vital in order to allay the effects of climate change. He pointed out some of the steps being undertaken in the country but added that there is still more work needed to be done in this regard. Talking on development, Rwanda was considered to be among the five fastest reforming countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and among the 20 fastest reforming nations in the world by World Bank’s Doing Business Report: 2009. Considering World Bank’s annual quantitative measures such as regulations for starting a business, the country was ranked 139 out of 181 countries, up from 148 out of 178 countries in the previous year. The EALA assembly was opened in Kigali on Thursday and President Kagame called for the empowerment of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) in all aspects for better output. The president said the EAC cannot achieve its vision of a dynamic region without a strong upright body to guide its healthy development. In Nyagatare District, Eastern Province, parents requested the government to intervene in the repatriation of their children, who were taken to Europe during the 1994 Genocide and illegally adopted. The children who were formerly sheltered at St. Agathe orphanage centre, located in Masaka, a Kigali suburb are believed to be living in France. According to the Mucyo Report on the role of France in the Genocide, the orphanage was headed and funded by Agathe Kanziga, the wife to Rwanda’s former Head-of-State, Juvenal Habyarimana. The centre was run by the Saint Vincent Palotti Sisters but at the orphanage, Sister Edita, a Polish citizen, was given the responsibility of finding families in Europe to adopt these children. Parents of the illegally adopted children maintain that the methodology applied for adoption of their children contradicts Article 341 of the Rwanda Constitution. Meanwhile, the senate approved several bills including one determining the functions, organisation and operation of the ‘chancellery’ for heroes and national orders. The bill defines a hero as any person who pursues objectives he or she undertakes to obtain a special achievement for the public interest and with proven high integrity, sacrifice and noble courage in his or her acts and who avoids cowardice. The lawmakers also approved the bill determining the organization and functioning of the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) and another that will help preserve culture with special emphasis on Kinyarwanda language. On the donor case, developing countries are to have a say on foreign aid, according to the universal action adopted mid last week in Accra, Ghana. According to the action called Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) from the third international High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, there will be reform in the way donor aid is given and spent. Forum participants used the development goals set out in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness signed in 2005, as a baseline. The discussions were based on consultations with more than 80 developing countries. Meanwhile, Amb. Liberata Mulamula, the Executive Secretary of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region commended regional dialogue in solving conflicts since the signing of a regional pact in 2006. While addressing the Regional Planning Meeting on Economic Development and Regional Integration in the ICGLR at Novotel hotel, Kigali, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rosemary Museminari, said that Rwanda attaches great commitment on economic development and regional integration, because they are vital in building everlasting peace and security in the region. Ends