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{{Millicom International Cellular (Millicom) today announced the appointment of Tongai Maramba as its new General Manager (GM) in Rwanda. }}

He will take up the role on 7 October when he will replace Diego Camberos who will move to Dakar as the new GM for Senegal.

Tongai has worked for Tigo Rwanda since 2010. He is currently the Chief Commercial Officer, prior to which he was Head of Mobile Financial Services (Tigo Cash).

He built Tigo Cash from concept to business in less than a year, managing the business to become market leader in Rwanda within two years of its launch.

Tigo Cash in Rwanda is now recognised by the GSMA, the global telecoms industry group, among the top five fastest-growing MFS businesses in the world. Tongai was selected from across the Kinnevik Group of companies to be the 2011 Rookie of the Year.

Before Tigo, he worked in the public sector as a strategy consultant for the Dubai Government and, before that, as a technology consultant for Ericsson and Atos Origin in various countries.

He grew up in Zimbabwe and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from King’s College, London and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from INSEAD.

Arthur Bastings, Millicom’s Executive Vice-President for Africa, said “I am delighted that we have been able to appoint someone as talented as Tongai for this important role in Rwanda. The country’s economy is growing fast and so is the number of our customers.

Over one and a half million people now enjoy using our mobile service in Rwanda with an increasing proportion also using Tigo Cash.

There are great opportunities ahead and I know Tongai will be an intelligent and inspiring leader of the great team we have in Rwanda.”

Tongai commented “I am very excited to be given the leadership role at Tigo. The company is already strong and is well-placed for further growth as we continue to offer great services to our customers in Rwanda.

We have a fantastic and energetic team here and I look forward to working with them in this new role.”

Diego Camberos said “I am leaving Rwanda with mixed feelings: excited by the prospect of a new role but sad to leave behind so many wonderful colleagues and friends.

Tigo remains in very safe and strong hands with Tongai, with whom I have worked closely for many years and I know he will be an excellent leader. I wish him and all my colleagues well for the future.”

{{The Netherlands’ ambassador to Rwanda, Her Excellence Leoni Margarita Cuelenaere visited Rwanda National Police on Thursday to strengthen the existing bilateral cooperation in various policing areas, especially in eradicating Gender Based Violence (GBV).}}

The Ambassador, who was also accompanied by the First Secretary of the embassy and other officials, were received by the Inspector General of Police, Emmanuel K. Gasana,

Present were also officials from One-UN-Rwanda.

The IGP expressed gratitude to the Dutch government for its continued cooperation and support to Rwanda National Police in various fields.

“I’m happy for your zeal and commitment to assist Rwanda National Police to fulfill its assignments,” said the IGP.

In the meeting, a technical team, bringing together RNP, One-UN, the Dutch embassy in Rwanda and other government institutions, was appointed, to make a study on how to scale-up Isange One-Stop centre in all parts of the country, which caters for the victims of GBV and child abuse.

The centre, which offers free psycho-socio and legal services to gender-based victims, is part of the campaign to fight GBV.

The study would also include establishing these centres in refuge camps. The report is scheduled to be completed in a week’s time.

Ambassador Cuelenaere commended Rwanda National Police for its efforts to fight GBV.

“Nobody should ever be denied their rights; I’m optimistic Rwanda National Police will succeed in this battle against GBV,” the ambassador observed.

She pledged continued cooperation and support to further enable Rwanda National Police accomplish its mandate.

{Ambassador Leoni Margarita shortly meeting with IGP Gasana}
source: RNP

{{Rwanda on Thursday handed over Cpl Karama Maloba of DRC Army (FARDC) to the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), who was arrested on 24 September 2013 at Busasamana, Rubavu district, on Rwanda territory.}}

He was dressed in FARDC combat uniform armed with AK-47 rifle no 2696 with 82 rounds of ammunition.

The soldier who belongs to 2 Bn, 804 Regiment was intercepted by the local population who reported to Rwanda Security Organs that put him under custody.

RDF spokesperson, Brig Gen Joseph Nzabamwita said that The EJVM was invited to verify the incident as is the procedure. The military experts have verified the incident, including receiving CPL Karama Maloba confession.

“The soldier was arrested on Rwanda territory heavily armed and under the influence, posing a security risk to Rwandans. We handed him to the EJVM as a gesture of goodwill and good relations.

We encourage our neighbors to engage in acts of good neighborliness including amicable handling of such cross border incidents”, said the Spokesperson.

EJVM team led by Col Jacques Assambo from Republic of Congo/Brazaville investigated the case, they took the soldier to Busasamana where he showed the area he was first intercepted by local population who called Rwandan Security Organs.

Col Jacques Assambo thanked the Government of Rwanda who called the EJVM to amicably handle the case. He said the soldier was in good health and testified himself to EJVM that he was well treated.

Another FARDC (Congolese Army) Senior Non-Commissioned Officer, Sergeant Major Kusakana Munanga Andre, service number (matricule): 1-72-88-93460-89 was arrested on Rwanda territory on 15 September 2013 in suspicious activities and handed to the EJVM on 17 September 2013.

The EJVM is a mechanism of International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) composed officers from 12 countries and MONUSCO to monitor and verify violations between DRC and neighboring countries.

Source: MOD

{{I wish to start by congratulating H.E. Julia BISHOP, for her appointment as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia.

I look forward to working with you. I also thank you, Madam President, for choosing the topic of small arms and light weapons for the High Level Meeting of your presidency.}}

We are all fully aware that it is long overdue, since the last time this threat was considered by the Security Council. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Secretary-General and the Vice President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, for joining us today.

As we contemplate the danger caused by small arms and weapons falling in the wrong hands, let me begin by extending to the people of Kenya my sympathy and solidarity, many of whom just days ago experienced the heinous crime, in great part because of access to those weapons.

As reported by the Secretary General, it is an undisputable fact that excessive accrual and uncontrolled spread of Small Arms and Light Weapons pose a substantial threat to international peace and security, human rights and social development in many countries.

{{Madam President,}}

It is a reality that the African continent, particularly the Great Lakes region, continues to be engulfed by internal armed conflicts, facilitated by weapons that are easily accessible.

We know from experience that small arms and light weapons have neither a small nor light impact on communities devastated by conflict, and we should not be fooled by the adjectives.

It is in recognition of the grave harm caused by the illicit manufacture,transfer and circulation, excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread of small arms and light weapons, as well as the importance of regional and sub-regional cooperation, that Rwanda ratified the Nairobi Protocol for the prevention, control and reduction of small arms and light weapons in the Great Lakes Region and Horn of Africa.

Rwanda has also been party to a number of initiatives taken at international, regional and local levels, which have culminated in life-saving commitments.

{{Madam President,}}

Rwanda has established and driven a policy on firearms and ammunitions, which provides for measures to regulate the import, transfer, brokering, marking and licensing of firearms, ammunition and munitions.

Consequently, so far 42,266 arms and 52 tons of unexploded ordinances (UXO) have been destroyed. Reports of the Regional Centre on Small Arms have shown that Rwanda is ahead in the sub-region in the management of stockpiles of arms and ammunition.

Madam President,

We take this opportunity to applaud UN Member States who signed the Arms Trade Treaty, which was adopted by the General Assembly on April 2, 2013.

Rwanda was among the many countries that signed the Treaty when it first opened up for signing here at the United Nations Headquarters.

Rwanda is proud to be associated with this Treaty, which includes small arms in its scope and foils prevailing international and regional instruments for the control and regulation of conventional small arms and light weapons.

We would also like to recognize the efforts of the Regional Centre for Small Arms based in Nairobi (RECSA) and East African Community Small Arms and Light weapons programs as well as other regional organizations in their task to combat the illicit use and transfer of small arms and light weapons.

We remain convinced that such regional efforts will help to ensure cooperation in efforts to address illicit transfer, destabilizing accumulation and misuse of such arms and weapons.

In conclusion, Madam President, Rwanda wishes to call on all members of the Security Council to extend political, financial and technical support and to work closely with regional initiatives in a true spirit of partnership, remembering that we have an obligation and responsibility to avert, combat the destabilizing accumulation and illicit manufacture, trade and circulation of small arms and light weapons.

I thank you.

Source: minaffet

{{• Our dear hosts, the George W Bush Institute and World Vision,
• Fellow First Ladies here present,
• Representatives of different foundations and corporations,
• Distinguished Guests,}}

I bring you warm greetings all the way from Rwanda.

What a lovely afternoon it is to be joining you for this roundtable session. Allow me to thank our gracious hosts – the Bush Institute and the World Vision – who have invited us to share our passion for changing the world, by transforming our own communities.

Rwanda has undergone an incredible journey of transformation. Sometimes, we hear people say that Rwanda is known for 4Gs. These are the gorillas, good governance, gender and genocide. Today I am here to tell you more about our story and what we want to stand for.

It all started with the need to define a clear future for ourselves as a country. A few questions were asked:

• What transformations were needed to emerge from a deeply depressing social and economic situation?
• How would we go about constructing a united and inclusive Rwandan identity? To mention a few.

Our Vision 2020 addresses these very questions; the vision is held up by 6 important pillars. One of them, which is the comprehensive human resource development for knowledge based economy, is most relevant for my message today.

My foundation is trying to complement public service, which is quite effective. I together with a sisterhood of caring and committed women, created the Imbuto Foundation.

Imbuto in our language means seed and our credo is ‘a seed well planted, watered, nurtured and given all the necessary support successfully grows into a healthy plant – one that reaches high and stands tall.’

Our mission is ‘to support the development of a healthy, educated and prosperous society’. As our mission suggests, we started taking care of families infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

We started when HIV was a major concern. We were involved with the Family Package project, which builds on PMTCT and takes a comprehensive approach to fighting the disease.

We looked at ways to provide everything these families needed to live their lives as normally as possible. African First Ladies, based on the concept that the community cares for all its children, created OAFLA which created a continental campaign “Treat Every Child as Your Own”.

Then we moved on the youth. Here we started providing scholarships to brilliant yet disadvantaged children, as we were working on empowering girls, who excelled at primary and secondary school.

We however realized that a child needs more than formal education to achieve true success. So, we organized forums where we mentored students; influenced them to work on character formation – things that are not offered in a regular curriculum.

We challenged our youth to learn how to set goals, how to live their lives based on Rwandan values while fitting in the global picture, and how to confidently express themselves. We have worked in health, education and economic empowerment, slowly narrowing our focus on the youth.

As you may know, just last month, Rwanda held its parliamentary elections. Women now hold 64% of the seats, a steep increase from 18% before 1994. We have more than doubled the 30% constitutional requirement.

While these parliamentarians go about executing their work, we at the Foundation are playing our part to make this progress sustainable and keep the cycle going. That is why we are investing all our energy in the youth. Just to give you an idea of our work over the last 10 years we, have:

• Awarded secondary school scholarships to over 5,000 disadvantaged boys and girls,
• Publicly recognized over 3,000 girls for excelling in primary and secondary school. We bring female role models to share their success stories with the girls and further inspire them,
• Developed an integrated community based Early Childhood Development and family center for cognitive stimulation of 0- 6 year olds,
• Promoted the culture of reading and writing for primary students by conducting 9 Reading Day campaigns nationwide.
• Organized 19 youth empowerment forums to inspire youth towards excellence, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

{{Ladies and Gentlemen,}}

Rwanda is serious about change and transformation. In a recent op-ed by our President he described “the Millennium Development Goals as a floor, rather than a ceiling.” This shows that we are convinced that improving is a non-stop process. We want to do more, we want to do it now, and we want it to last.

Let us join forces to repair this world.

Thank you for your attention.

{{President Paul Kagame has noted that Rwanda’s progress has been catapaulted by a rigorous investiment in human resource and increasing institutions capacity all aimed at putting in place good governance that build investor confidence.

In his presentation at the Milken Institute event in US, President Kagame responded to incquiries on the things that he thought need to do in Rwanda to take the country to the next level. }}

{Below is a short presentation by President Paul Kagame at the Milken Event.}

{{Thank you.}}

Let me give a background of where we have come from.

Where we have come from in Rwanda if you look at where we were 20yrs ago immidately after the tragic genocide, we had the whole world trying to help bringing humanitarian assistance. This was definately costing money.

Had Rwandans sat back and felt confortable with recieving that kind of help we probably could have remained in the same situation even today.

In few years after 1994, we started interucting with the donors. We told them maybe we needed to organise ourselves and do things differently.

As we helped to deal with emergency situation we needed to think about another step and that was building something so that we dont stay in the emergency situation.

The relationship with Hon. Tony Blair we had was around mid 90s when he came to power.

His government which was not a traditional donor to Rwanda was leading the donor community in terms of giving support to Rwanda. And they opened up the way because when we insisted on working together ,we insisted we must lead the way and we benefit from the resources differently but many donors resisted the idea but we insisted on working as real partners.

We invited many NGOs and told them so much was Flowing through the country and with very little impact. And we said Lets coordinate our activities on the ground and allow the building of the foundations onto which the country can build its future. Thats how we tookoff and UK led the way in the donor community and thats how Rwanda started taking off and moving forward.

Right from the begining we understood that to do things diffrently and for different things to happen other than what we have been used to including poverty and others. The situation in Rwanda though to the extreme side, it mirrored what happens in the rest of Africa.

As we were dealing with our own situation we were saying and believed in good governance and thus we needed to make reforms, Political, Economic,Investing in human resource (Education) infrastructure but the issue was where would money come from?

We were recieving money but it was not very helpful and we said we could use such money that was coming in such a disorganised way to start flowing to do the very things we needed to do for a better future and this is where the struggle was. Thats how we continued to move on to where we are today.

You can have the reforms going on and the money flowing to build infrastructure but there are key things to note. There is need for capacity to be built both human and institutional capacity. We concentrated on this.

I would have wished that Blair stayed in office much longer. After his tenure we met he had been thinking about what to do after office and I was thinking about what to do while in office and that was about building capacity and insitutions and thats how AGI came to be associated with Rwanda and has done tremendous work in Rwanda and has allowed us to bring in other partners.

Capacity is what we concentrated on. We invested in people and institutions. We brought in people to work with our own to help develop them and thats what has allowed us to take off and once the setting is ripe as it is , it has allowed people to invest in the country as well as we have been working on regional intergration because Rwanda is small and just developing itself it makes more sense if rwanda is playing in a wider market of the region.

Investors who come to Rwanda we give them the thinking that they should not just be thinking about investing in Rwanda but to be seen as through Rwanda to the wider regional market.

{{Importance of Larger Markets}}

We have been encouraging intergration to take place in the region . more countries are expected to join the larger East african Community bloc.

As we have been intergratins we have created a customs union, common market, and the future political federation, however, go step by step.

The intergration maytake long, but you find a few responding faster and those responding at same pace could move together as others deal with some of the problems they think they have.

We have been looking at railway, energy projects and oil pipeline infrastrustructure in East Africa we moved on with Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda because we had the urgency to move but left space for others to come in and mantaining the integrity of the Intergration.

Captial will flow across a wider space in the region and not confined to one country and creating sense for (member states)s and the investors. This will bring transformation.

Africa is nolonger just dealing with poverty issues but pushing for prosperty and wealth creation.