Author: Publisher

{Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR) was awarded the best financial institution that worked in partnership with the ministry of industry and commerce (MINICOM).
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This came as result of distributing, supporting and developing micro-finance projects around the country.

BPR was thanked on the way it managed to allocate funds and promoting small micro-enterprises, through supporting (PPPMER / Small Rural and microfinance-enterprise promotion project) which is set to end this year of 2013.

Over the last 13 years Banque Populaire du Rwanda was given 700 million Rwandan francs by “MININICOM “to be fairly allocated and distributed as loans to people with small projects.

The program was all about loan provision of the amount worth 1000,000 million Rwandan francs per project development and promotion.

On the closing ceremony of this project which took place this Friday, Innocent Burindi the head of BDF which works in partnership with MINICOM,

“BPR supported us very much through reaching, distributing and promoting small projects and businesses”.

He added that, BPR managed to distribute over 600 millions to small projects whereby by 900 million Rwandan francs came as loan returns, and 300 million Rwandan francs was profit.

According to the BPR Boss, Ephrem Twahirwa, “BPR as a financial institution did all its best for the successful allocation of these funds to the right projects.

He also added that BPR is ready to support that project; in any case there services are required again in future.

{The streets of Bangui are eerily silent, save for the periodical rat-tat-tat of gunfire that has become a routine part of daily life in the Central African capital. 189 miles north, the city of Bossangoa lies starkly divided in Christian and Muslim sectors, an ominous portent of things to come.}

This is a country teetering perilously on the edge of disaster; on the eve of unthinkable tragedy. Since the collapse of François Bozizé’s much-reviled authoritarian government and the victory of the Muslim-dominated Séléka rebels, Genocide Watch, UNICEF, and members of the U.S. State Department have warned that the C.A.R. is heading toward genocide.

Since winning independence from France in 1960, much of the republic’s history has revolved around coup d’états, low-level wars, corruption, and widespread mismanagement. Muslims, who mainly reside in the north and make up 15 percent of the population, have long faced discrimination at the hands of the 50 percent Christian majority. That is, until this March.

A coalition of rebel groups named the Séléka Front, mainly composed of Muslims with vague demands for greater representation, have been waging a war against the central government for many years. The Séléka Front rebels captured the capital city of Bangui on the March 25th, 2013. The President fled, the rebels murdered a number of African peacekeeping troops, and a small contingent of French troops stood by as the crisis unfolded.

For UN officials and diplomats worldwide, the situation in the C.A.R. brings back haunting memories of Kigali in 1994, when a plane crash that killed the Rwandan and Burundian presidents ignited a genocide that killed One million civilians in 100 days.

While Central African Muslims do hold historical grievances toward the former ruling Christian majority, their grievances are not nearly as strong as the enmity that motivated Hutu extremists to massacre one Million Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

A conflict between the Muslim Séléka and ragtag Christian militias is engulfing the country. Set up by President Bozizé to fight bandits and gangs, these militias, named anti-balaka (“anti-machete”), have taken up arms against the new rebel government.

Armed with swords, knives, and machetes, the anti-balaka have taken to targeting Muslim communities even if they show no signs of affiliation with the Séléka. For their part, the Séléka have retaliated by indiscriminately shooting at any Christian civilians they suspect of supporting the anti-balaka. And so the violence has become more vitriolic and more sectarian, day after day.

Observers who have visited C.A.R. are quick to point out that the armed groups that are perpetrating the violence are not representative of the population as a whole. Mia Farrow, the UNICEF goodwill ambassador to the Central African Republic, has spoken with numerous civilians, both Muslim and Christian, who fervently assert they hold no grudges against the other community. It is the Séléka and the anti-balaka, they say, that are persecuting men, women, and children alike purely for their religious beliefs.

Michel Djotodia, the leader of Séléka and self-appointed President, recently publicly announced that he had lost control over his rebel forces. And thus the conflict intensifies: recruitment of child soldiers has risen, and there have been cross-border raids into neighboring countries such as Cameroon. Regional experts have raised the possibility that fundamentalist groups from the surrounding region, both Muslim and Christian, could also become involved in the conflict.

So far, there have been no episodes of mass killings or slaughter that could be characterized as genocide. But in the town center of Bossangoa, Christian refugees gathered in masses around the town church and Muslims seeking shelter in a school just across the road eye each other with fear. In Bangui, rebel fighters loot, rape, and carry out summary executions. Birao, a Muslim town in the north, lies abandoned and in ruins, destroyed by flames.

“We are in a pre-genocidal situation,” said Robert Jackson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa at the U.S. State Department. Killings are escalating with impunity, and the small African force that remains rarely leaves its barracks in Bangui. Many Western observers remember how General Roméo Dallaire’s skeletal peacekeeping force stood by helplessly, under orders from UN headquarters in New York, as genocide consumed Rwanda.

On Monday, November 18th, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called urgently for the deployment of a 9,000-strong multinational peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic. In an open letter to the UN Security Council, the International Crisis Group urged for a stronger mandate for the establishment of security to be given to French and African forces already in the nation in order to re-establish law and order and to curb fighting between Séléka and anti-balaka militants.

So far, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has defined the situation as “on the verge of genocide” and has pledged at least 1,000 of his country’s troops to a multinational, mostly African-led peacekeeping force that is currently being debated on by the UN Security Council.

Genocide has not yet subsumed the C.A.R.’s 4.5 million inhabitants. But with floods of refugees fleeing and daily killings becoming the norm, the nation is spiraling toward an unimaginable catastrophe.

“It seems like just one match could set off a chain of mass killings that maybe no one could stop,” Farrow said. Haunted by the memory of Rwanda’s victims, the world must act before it is too late.

{{Source}}: Berkeley Political Review
{{Additional Reporting}}: IGIHE

Washington D.C.: {The First Lady, Mrs. Jeannette Kagame is expected, today, to deliver remarks at a conference themed “Going the Whole Nine Yards: What is needed for an Africa free of AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria?”
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The conference will be hosted by Friends of the Global Fund Africa, ahead of Global Fund’s 4th replenishment.

Apart from Mrs. Jeannette Kagame, other notable speakers expected to participate at the conference, are Nigerian Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Mark Dybul, Global Fund Executive Director.

Government representatives, civil society, members of the private sector, and various foundations will attend the event.

Mrs. Kagame will engage the audience on the positive impact of implementing the Global Fund in Rwanda and the benefits that have accrued to Africa since its establishment.

Mrs. Jeannette Kagame is a board member of Friends of the Global Fund Africa.

Friends of the Global Fund Africa were created on 3 May 2006. Their mission is to galvanize African governments, the private sector and civil society for the purpose of bringing about sustainable and effective methods of addressing AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa, with an emphasis on the Global Fund being a key funding mechanism in the fight.

{Young Tanzanians have been advised to avoid going abroad to US and Europe for studies, but to rather make use of similar opportunities provided by first world institution that are opening up branches in Africa.}

Professor Timothy Brown of Carnegie Mellon University-Rwanda gave the advice at a meeting with students of local universities seeking scholarships outside Tanzania.

“But what is important is that, studying in Africa is cheap, convenient and uses facilities and examples that are similar to their context,” he said adding that it takes a lot of money and majority students use a lot of time paying loans they applied during their study abroad.

He added that Carnegie University is seeking brilliant Tanzanian who will be given a 50 per cent tuition fee scholarship in the Rwanda campus.

“We will take as many students as possible who are intelligent and those with exceptional ICT intrapreneurial skills which they can research and help their communities after graduating.

“Because technology is about simplifying things, so the student is needed to demonstrate the use of ICT in helping the provision of a certain service and we will support him/her in building that along with other courses, they should study here and help the community back home,” he said.

Carnegie Mellon University is a global research university recognised for world-class arts and technology programmes and has been running for 113 years.

The Rwanda campus was established in 2012 and, according to Professor Brown, this is the first scholarship opportunity for Tanzania to join the university.

The Citizen

{An official from Rwanda’s Ministry of Health says currently about 125,000 people who are HIV positive are effectively taking antiretroviral drugs.}

In an Interview with IGIHE, Dr. Jean de Dieu Ngirabega, Director General, Clinical Services in the Ministry of Health and Head of the Institute of HIV/AIDS, Disease Prevention &Control (IHDPC) said, while referring to the number of people who were tested, that about 125,000 people living with HIV infections are effectively taking medicament

This number represents 90% of those who are at the stage of taking antiretroviral drugs which are now available in almost all health facilities across the country.

This number is commendable because the number of patients who take medicaments is increasingly going up, but there are others who still do not want to let the public know that there are HIV positive fearing to be stigmatized and that is why they take antiretroviral drugs anonymously.

ARVs prolong life and the chances for an infected person to stay healthy. They also decrease the risk of an infected person passing on the virus to someone else.

According to the latest data, HIV prevalence in adult population aged from 15- 49 years is 3% estimated at 206,000 people living with HIV, among them 50,000 don’t know that they are HIV positive and/or they never contacted health facilities for HIV services

{{Currently 3% 0f Rwandans are HIV positive}}.

HIV prevalence is 3.0% in the general pop 15-49, but 3.7% among women and 2.2% among men (DHS 2010)

Young women 15-24 are five times more infected than young men, and women 18-19 ten times more infected (DHS 2010)

High HIV prevalence in key populations, e.g. 51% among female sex workers (FSW BSS 2010)

GBV is a contributing factor to the epidemic – 54% of women have ever experienced physical or sexual violence

More than 90% of people eligible and in need of ARVs received them in 2011

He highlighted the importance of HIV programs at work place saying this is essential if we are to control AIDS epidemic. He therefore highlighted the vision of reaching global targets of Zero new HIV infections, Zero AIDS related death and Zero Stigma and discrimination associated to HIV and AIDS.