{Europe Day falls on 9th May every year. The celebration of the formation of the European Union started with 6 member states way back in the 1950s and has 28 member countries today.The European Union Head of Delegation to Rwanda, Ambassador Michael Ryan, talked to IGIHE on a number of issues; poverty eradication, support to energy, agriculture and governance sectors among others. Excerpts. }
{{EU expansion}}
The EU has expanded but with the same principles of economic unity, political, single political voice through our high representatives and continuous consultations among the 28 member countries.I think that is what is unique about the European Union, something that I am very proud of.
Even when we have to deal with issues such as — migration, economic recovery, unemployment; we deal with them in the context of discussing it amongst our members.
We feel that that partnership of European Union with Rwanda is long stable, and mutual, and growing. Long because we came here in the 1990s. So we do go back a long way. We have been with the people of Rwanda in conflict and then out of conflict.
Development is transforming the country before our eyes; buildings are growing up in the city. As European Union we are happy to be associated with that spectacular performance.
Rwanda’s positioning on the international arena has been long, it’s historical and it’s natural; including use of IT, how it is immensely active in the East Africa community ,in the African context it champions particular issues such as climate change; child and women rights.
{{Recovery}}
We feel very much part of that process of recovery. The EU approach to development cooperation in Rwanda is to support what the government does; not to invent something like a new vision. Our mandate is to support the government. That is the global approach to development cooperation; it is not to impose but to buy into what our partners are doing. Of course to encourage the main sector in areas such as environment , trade is helpfulto jointly encourage certain directions and I am sure will come to issues related to human rights and democracy.
{{Interventions in Rwanda}}
The EU has been very active and involved in the development of infrastructures in Rwanda. A number of roads have been financed by the European Union, the most recent one being the Kigali –Gatuna road. If you go along that beautifully smooth road, you will arrive before you know you are at the border. It was built by a German company; so we are quite happy about that at the moment.
With this new phase of development cooperation, we signed an agreement with the government last year, for a period of five to seven years. We allocated € 460 million Euros and most of it will go to government energy, agriculture, democratic and economic governance sectors.
In fact I am hoping on Monday or Tuesday next week, with the ministry of finance, we’ll sign agreements worth €177 million to support the energy sector. One of my key counterpart is Minister James Musoni. We are very keen to work with him on improving access to energy.
The support to enabling more people accessing may be in other forms; solar, hydro water etc. EU Rwanda will be the first to benefit from this new generation of programs for energy.
The next deadline will come upon by the next couple of months focusing on on agriculture with €200 million dollars directly for budget support. When we give money to the government to fund its programs, of course we have syndicates that we agree on, everything is done jointly in agreement with one another which works very well. That is sign of our cooperation which is an excellent rapport. The European Union has worked with the government in executing EU projects in energy, agriculture and governance.
The €200 million for agriculture, €370 million, €90 million, €23 million in supporting energy and €60 million of which 50 will be for governance and 10 million Euros for civil society.
{{Suppoting Civil Society}}
EU has a couple of interventions that involve supporting the civil society in promoting other programs and instruments of democracy and human rights.
This morning I was at the launch of Legal Aid Forum which we finance. We do a lot of work with the civil society. Outside of this money, there is outside money that comes in and used to support the registration of land through the Ministry of Natural Resources. There’s a € 4 million grant for that. We also have also regional programs in where Rwanda joins with Congo and Uganda on road projects or cross border trade. We are supporting the Rusizi III Hydroelectricity Project where EU and the European Investment Bank are working together.
{{Involvement in poverty eradication }}
Poverty eradication is the fundamental principle of development cooperation among all countries like ones we represent here. We do it because we have an international obligation to bring people out of poverty.
Among the 28 EU member states, we have the rich and the least rich; we have instruments to invest into those poor countries. It is a principle we are applying in our cooperation with countries like Rwanda in eradicating poverty. That is a very noble objective and of course it is one exactly the government of Rwanda gives high priority. We want to be relevant to the citizens of Rwanda, not just to Kigali. We are giving money to support agriculture and energy.
There was a big debate three or four months ago when the National Institute of Statistics changed the methods in which poverty index was calculated.
EU is going to support the National Institute of Statistics with a €10m million as part of the governance programs and the ombudsman’s office. We are supporting the Ministry of Finance, in this particular case statistics, and we have a lot of confidence in the way NISR measures poverty. We have confidence and it is evident to anyone like myself that as I drive around the countryside, things are getting better but there is a long way to go. The government is doing well when it comes to social protection programmes such as Mituelle de santé.
I can remember my own country when I was a child in 1950, 1960, 1970; it was considered a quite poor island.
It takes a while but you get there.But Getting out of poverty is a long term process.
{{On media and Human Rights}}
On 3rd May we had international press freedom day and the EU Head of Delegation published a statement recalling that the reforms began in the media which we saw in 2013 and ask the government to continue with them.
The Rwanda Media Commission, the self regulatory nature of media and we do is derived from our own political and socioeconomic background, we believe in independent of the press.
Sometimes we suffer of a very aggressive press but you know it is something that we feel that all have its checks and balances wherever in the world.
In Rwanda there is a growing media presence. There are more radio stations and more discussions, which all point to a rather healthy media landscape.
Human rights is an issue that, we call the fundamental freedom of expression building blocks. We don’t have a foreign policy of seeking to have shared values , we want to share the value not to impose them, so there will be different interpretations of what we mean because what we call balance might not be balance in the other countries.
In the European Union context we do quite a lot; you will see there is no office here but our colleagues, the Netherlands embassy, the Belgian and the British High Commission are working in the areas of media to arrive at these shared values.
We also support civil society alongside the government to develop the media and judicial system. So that an area we are very comfortable with the government; I say comfortable because we understand one another. We are not here to make but improve the relationship. It is like a family and this is the government that is very much ready to have so many discussions. EU approaches are based based on partnership, dignity and mutual respect.
We are looking on the African continent where some presidents are running for their second terms or sometimes they fail terms. EU is careful to express itself as much as it can with the consistency of 3rd terms or 4th. We see what is happening in Congo Brazaville, Central African Republic, in Burundi but we are very much for democracy that means shared values that we are beginning to achieve with our partners here and elsewhere.
I should say maybe briefly, as much as human rights area building block of our foreign policy, , poverty eradication is an objective of development policy, but our objective in foreign policy is stability and security. This is a fundamental of what we do worldwide. We want to have peace, security, stability, lack of conflict particularly in troubled regions in Africa. Bringing about stability usually means working closely with the governments, the regions or the African Union among others. I have been in many countries where things are worse, I would congratulate Rwanda.
{{Balance of trade}}
The EU has signed an economic partnership agreement (EPA) East African Community and SADC. This is so important because once it’s ratified by all the member states of the East African Community we will begin a process for the gradual legalization of trade between the two blocs. But I should say there are a plenty of safeguard measures for those European industries, but it doesn’t mean we don’t recognize the importance of trading between one another.
Well Rwanda is already embarked on the strategy of promoting its tourism and non traded items to balance her trade deficit. At this stage exporting tea, coffee and minerals. What Rwanda is doing is on the right track which is to concentrate on the IT services in sense of exporting IT skills.
She is developing the potential as a hub for conferences, this week there is World Economic Forum and this is a huge achievement. July we have the African Union summit. The country is going to more high value investments in agriculture. Being part of EAC is extremely important for Rwanda, linking with neighbors. As European Union we support cooperation in trading, political, defense, and security. With the Northern corridor project and central corridor connections, Rwanda is overcoming its land locked status. Rwanda Air expansion is feeding into tourism growth.
{{Last word }}
There is much to congratulate Rwanda for; very good judicial systems, access to justice which is believed important, child protection, women promotion among others. There is much to work on but the government is trading a good path; they would love to see your court actions accelerate, reviewing penal codes, decriminalization of defamation. Regarding the political landscape, there is political participation that evolves in time. We would like to see broader space. We are quite keen to see that the population has options.
The media is very responsible.
Of course you have to understand the nature of the society. I think historical context and codes of language should be used in a way that ensures never to return to the situation where Rwanda was in 1994.
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