EU pledges further support to Rwanda

The partnership between the European Union and Rwanda is positive and will continue to grow, the European Union Development and Cooperation (DEVCO) Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Francesca Mosca, said yesterday. “We have two new programmes which should be discussed before the end of this year – the MDG initiative, worth 30 million Euros, and another for rural roads development and food security,” she said. Mosca was speaking to journalists after meeting Finance and Economic Planning minister John Rwangombwa at the latter’s office in Kigali. “These programmes aim at poverty alleviation. We should focus on this aspect and decide on them, because they are key to the country’s development,” she added.The EU official praised Rwanda for her effective aid utilisation, saying the EU support was delivering results on the ground.“I looked at the achievements made in both roads and in the food security and I was quite impressed by what I saw. I think the money we are putting in this country is well managed and it has an impact on poverty alleviation and this is quite important,” Mosca told journalists.She added: “We have disbursed 47 million Euros to Rwanda’s budget (released last week), because we found out that all the indicators were achieved. We have a contract with this country and since it has been fulfilled we don’t see the reason why we can retain the funds.”The meeting between aimed at discussing further support from the EU to be considered during the European Development Fund (11th EDF) for Rwanda.Mosca’s remarks come hot on the heels of media reports attributed to Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, that the EU was suspending new aid to Rwanda, following controversial allegations that the country was backing rebels in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kigali has denied links with the M23 rebels.“We discussed programmes in key sectors of roads, infrastructure and food security and we discussed the programming of 11th EDF due to the fact that, we are in an important moment where 11th EDF is going to start in 2014.” The EU has been providing budget support to Rwanda since 1999 and general budget support has been framed in a Millennium Development Goals (MDG) contract.The MDG contract is a long-term, more predictable form of general budget support that the EU has launched in a number of countries at the start of the 10th EDF programme.According to Rwangombwa, EU continues to support Rwanda’s development programmes, especially in poverty eradication and promotion of good nutrition.“The message from EU was clear from last week when they disbursed 47 million Euros towards budget support that was due. The disbursement was on time and it was a strong message from them already that they are committed to the programmes we have with them as a country and development partners,” the minister said.He added: “We appreciate the fact that they based their decisions on the existing programme. We have an MDG contract with them and the fact that they honoured their contract is something we really appreciate.”Rwangombwa stated that the budget support Rwanda is supposed to get from the EU has already been disbursed, adding that additional budget support will go directly to development of rural roads, energy and agriculture.“The EU will discuss that in November. We have been discussing with them the areas where the aid will be channelled into and ignore the issues of politics here and there,” he explained.The visiting official, the minister added, was in the country to assess EU-aided programmes.

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EU pledges further support to Rwanda