The Head of State is in the New York, United States of America (USA) for the 77th United Nations General Assembly.
Before assuming duties as the Administrator of USAID, Samantha Power served as the 28th US Ambassador to the United Nations.
USAID provides funding to Rwanda’s agriculture and health among other sectors.
In 2021, Rwanda was the 21st African country that received large funding from the agency which stood at US$132,847,206 (over Rwf140 billion) while the country had received US$137,601,458 (Rwf146 billion) in the previous year.
In 2019, USAID supported Rwanda with US$167,252,235 (0ver Rwf177 billion) up from US$112,298,347 (almost Rwf120 billion) of 2018.
Lat year, a large portion of the funding from USAID to Rwanda (US$75 million) was allocated to the health sector.
Of them, US$31 million was allocated for primary healthcare while US$16 million was utilized to address maternal and child health needs as well as family planning.
A total of US$21 million were injected in anti-HIV/AIDS program while US$6.9 million was allocated to water distribution, hygiene and sanitation programs.
Among others, USAID supported Rwanda with US$16$ million to promote agriculture, US$8.3 million for emergency management, US$6.9 million to promote good governance and US$3.9 million to promote economic activities.
The agency’s funding to Rwanda continued in the areas of health and education among others.
The incident occurred in the evening of Thursday 22nd September 2022 as it rained heavily in Karuhozi Village, Mbale Cell of Karangazi Sector.
The Executive Secretary of Karangazi Sector, Hope Mutesi has confirmed to IGIHE that the cows were struck dead by lightning in a farm.
She advised farmers to subscribe for livestock insurance so that they can get compensated in case of losses.
Similar incidents have been happening in Nyagatare District. Recently on 7th September, lightning also struck four cows dead in Rwempasha Sector of the same district.
On 14th August last year, another resident identified as Scovia Kobusingye lost nine cows to lightning strike. He was however compensated 28 cows by kind people.
The meeting held in New York and chaired by the United States President Joe Biden, was aimed at raising funds for health care efforts in the fight against diseases including AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
The goal was to collect $18 billion but only $14.25 billion has been collected. Nonetheless, there are countries that have not yet contributed, including Italy and the United Kingdom.
In addition to Rwanda’s contribution of $3.25 million, the United States of America has pledged to contribute ⅓ of the Global Fund’s budget. Initially, the country provided $2 billion out of its $6 billion pledge.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, said that his country will contribute $1.6 billion dollars, an addition to the 300 million Euros that his country pledged recently.
Germany committed to giving $3 billion while Canada pledged $1.21 billion. Many countries around the world have pledged to increase their contribution by 30%. These include Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain.
The European Union has also announced that it will increase its funding by 30%, pledging 750 million Euros to help the world’s health sector.
African countries that increased their contribution by 30% include Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda.
The contributions will be allocated to health programs including the fight against AIDS.
Statistics from The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), show that the number of people infected with AIDS increased by 1.5 million last year.
Meanwhile, tuberculosis cases also increased, with 1.5 million deaths in 2020 alone, which is the highest number in more than 10 years. Malaria-related deaths have decreased by 47% between 2002 and 2020.
President Kagame and Prime Minister Amor Mottley last met in April 2022 during his visit to Barbados.
Rwanda’s Presidency has revealed that President Kagame held talks with Mia Amor Mottley on Wednesday 21st September 2022.
Discussions were also attended by Holm Keller, the Chairman of kENUP Foundation; Prof Senait Fisseha, a health expert and board member of the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE).
kENUP is a global non-profit public foundation supporting research-based innovation in the wider health industries for societal benefit.
Rwanda and Senegal are among the first African countries selected to host vaccine manufacturing facilities.
Rwanda has been undergoing preparatory phases to start producing vaccines for different diseases locally.
On 23rd June 2022, President Kagame laid the foundation stone for the construction of a vaccine manufacturing plant in Kigali Special Economic Zone located in Masoro of Gasabo District.
At the time, the CEO of BioNTech, Prof Uğur Şahin revealed that they want to enter first clinical trial of Malaria and Tuberculosis vaccines by the end of this year and beginning next year.
Africa seeks to manufacture 60% of needed vaccines in 20 years from the current 1 percent.
Kagame was delivering remarks at the 77th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday 21st September 2022.
The President of DRC, Felix Tshisekedi who also attended the assembly accused Rwanda of being behind M23 rebel group which is pointed out as the main security threat in the country despite the presence of more than 130 armed groups.
President Kagame said that the world is in a state of turbulence, with intersecting crises growing in scale and severity, including climate change, food price inflation, conflict, and uncontrolled migration.
“These challenges all require multilateral cooperation and efforts. Yet the perception, that the international system is no longer up to the task, has only deepened, particularly where the interests of powerful members are at stake,” he said.
The Head of State also talked about security problems in eastern DRC highlighting that the current situation is not different from what happened 20 years ago when the largest and most expensive United Nations peacekeeping mission was first deployed.
“This has exposed neighbouring states, notably Rwanda, to cross-border attacks that are entirely preventable. There is an urgent need to find the political will to finally address the root causes of instability in eastern DRC. The blame game does not solve the problems. These challenges are not insurmountable, and solutions can be found. This would ultimately be much less costly in terms of both money and human lives,” he said.
As regional troops resolved to deploy troops to fight armed groups in DRC, Tanzania refused to send its troops. Meanwhile, DRC boycotted Rwandan troops from participating in joint regional operations.
Speaking at UN General Assembly, Kagame also pointed out examples demonstrating how cooperation can help countries address problems facing them.
In the area of peacebuilding and counterterrorism, the President underscored that regional initiatives can complement the important work of the United Nations.
Kagame pointed out examples where regional or bilateral initiatives have been proven to make a big difference, whether in the Central African Republic, or the successful engagement to contain violent extremism in northern Mozambique conducted by Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community.
“If this approach was tried properly in DRC, as proposed by the Nairobi Process, it would make a difference. However, to be sustainable, such efforts require consistent financial support from the international community. A lot is at stake, and time is not on our side,” he affirmed.
“We cannot anticipate or prevent every crisis. But we can be better prepared to react quickly and effectively when needed, especially if we work together,” he added.
These challenges all require multilateral cooperation and efforts. Yet the perception, that the international system is no longer up to the task, has only deepened, particularly where the interests of powerful members are at stake.
In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, recent setbacks have served to highlight that the security situation is fundamentally no different than it was 20 years ago, when the largest and most expensive United Nations peacekeeping mission was first deployed. This has exposed neighbouring states, notably Rwanda, to cross-border attacks that are entirely preventable.
There is an urgent need to find the political will to finally address the root causes of instability in eastern DRC. The blame game does not solve the problems. These challenges are not insurmountable, and solutions can be found. This would ultimately be much less costly in terms of both money and human lives.
Despite shortcomings, there are examples to demonstrate that international cooperation can successfully address the issues that matter to all of us.
Global health is a case in point.
The Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria has helped save countless lives in Africa and beyond, while also strengthening health systems. I hope that all countries will respond strongly, and sustain their commitments, at the 7th Global Fund replenishment session chaired by President Biden later today.
Africa is doing its part but must do more. For sustainability, external funding must go hand-in-hand with increased domestic financing for health. This is a priority which the African Union is tracking on an annual basis, and which I am honoured to lead on behalf of the organisation.
We are also working with partners to bring end-to-end vaccine manufacturing to our continent, notably through collaboration with BioNTech, and strong support from the European Union. This is critical to increase Africa’s resilience against future pandemics.
I commend the Secretary-General for convening the Transforming Education Summit earlier this week. The future of billions of children and young people across the world depends on overcoming the challenges of inclusion and quality of instruction, particularly as we recover from the pandemic.
Away from the headlines, the United Nations and other multilateral institutions retain the ability to set an agenda, around which we can all rally.
At the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali, leaders adopted an ambitious program of action, including special instruments on Living Lands, Sustainable Urbanization, and Child Care Protection and Reform. We also agreed to prioritize public-private partnerships to create digital jobs for young people across the Commonwealth.
The future is digital and transformation is happening now, as evidenced by the ongoing work of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development and the Smart Africa Secretariat.
High-quality digital jobs are a practical response to the underlying drivers of irregular migration by closing the human capital investment gap that separates high- and low-income countries. To ensure that the benefits are equally shared, we must continue investing equitably in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
In the area of peacebuilding and counterterrorism, regional initiatives can complement the important work of the United Nations.
Regional or bilateral initiatives have been proven to make a big difference, whether in the Central African Republic, or the successful engagement to contain violent extremism in northern Mozambique conducted by Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community. If this approach were tried properly in DRC, as proposed by the Nairobi Process, it would make a difference.
However, to be sustainable, such efforts require consistent financial support from the international community.
A lot is at stake, and time is not on our side.
We cannot anticipate or prevent every crisis. But we can be better prepared to react quickly and effectively when needed, especially if we work together.
The bales of used clothes were seized from three smugglers, who fled during the operation conducted in Bitare Village, Nkanda Cell in Busanze Sector. The smugglers were attempting to sneak the clothes into Rwanda from the neighboring Burundi.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Theobald Kanamugire, the Police spokesperson for the Southern region said that the smugglers were intercepted at about 4:30am as they crossed into Rwanda through an illegal border point.
“They were intercepted by security personnel, who were on their night patrol. The smugglers dropped the bales down and fled. The clothes were handed over to Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) branch in Nyaruguru,” SP Kanamugire said.
“We understand there are groups of smugglers but we commend the role of residents in fighting these illegal businesses, through information sharing,” he added.
Last week, the Rwanda National Police (RNP) Revenue Protection Unit (RPU) seized 200kgs of used clothes from smugglers in Nyamagabe District.
The goods seized from six people, who were also arrested in Bususuruke Village, Kagano Cell of Kitabi Sector, had been smuggled into Rwanda from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
This concert called “Christmas Carols Concert” is organized every year by Chorale de Kigali in a special and innovative way to satisfy the yearning of its fans.
This time, the concert has been organized with changes. Normally, the Christmas Carols Concert takes place on the Sunday before Christmas Day there have been changes where it is set for Friday 16th December in this year.
In an IGIHE interview with Rukundo Charles Lwanga, the organizer of the concert, revealed that putting it on Friday was due to the fact that there are other football events for the World Cup that they don’t want to make their fans have to choose what event to attend or miss.
“Since Sunday is the final of the World Cup, putting the two together would be betraying our fans. There is also another third place playoff on Saturday but there is no match on Friday,” he said.
The last two concerts of the Chorale de Kigali took place at BK Arena building.
This time, it will be held at ‘Kigali Conference and Exhibition Village’, the former premises ‘camp Kigali’.
It will take place in the big tent that can accommodate 3500 people.
Rukundo said that the tickets for the concert will be released early next month [October] and the seats will be checked so that everyone will know where they will be seated according to their ticket number.
“On the day of the concert, everyone will come and see the seat number that corresponds to the ticket number. We used this in 2019 and it worked well.”
The last two years were marked by the Covid-19 epidemic, but that did not stop Chorale de Kigali from performing for its fans.
Even though some concerts did not happen as expected due to COVID-19 related restrictions, Rukundo assured fans that this year’s concert will be special because the measures to prevent Covid-19 have been eased.
“This is the first concert we are going to do after the easing of restrictions. They will get the music that they have been deprived of. We started the preparations early, the singers are in advanced stages of preparation so that people will enjoy,” he noted.
Chorale de Kigali has also organized a new initiative to ask people through social media, to list their favorite songs from their past concerts that they want to be sung in this year’s concert, the three to be selected will be added on the list of songs to be performed. It is a program that will start in the next few days.
“We want our fans to participate in the preparation of the songs that will be performed,” said Rukundo.
Ingabire made the call on Tuesday, September 19, 2022, as she presided over the start of a week dedicated to gender equality and complementarity in Kirehe District of Eastern Province.
It was organized under the theme “Promoting the principle of gender equality, the foundation for good governance and sustainable development.”
The planned activities were preceded by the civil marriage of 737 families that had been living together illegally.
It is expected that this week will end with the civil marriage of more than 2560 families.
Some of the residents of Kirehe District have revealed that there are men and women who do not understand the principle of gender equality and complementarity and asked the government to increase awareness.
Alice Uwizeyimanawho lives in Nyamugari Sector said that the principle of gender equality is generally good because it allows a woman and a man to work and grow together even though some women have misunderstood it.
“Even today, there are people who say that equality is not good. We, women, understand it quickly, but men see it as a disrespect to them. The government should conduct more training in the community, in churches, train women and men so that they understand the principle,” she said.
“You will find some women use equality, to harass men and others abuse them, and then some men don’t even go to report them to the leaders. There are many men you find being harassed but they decide to hold their ordeal inside of themselves. What should be done is to increase awareness among families,” said another resident identified as Sylvestre Birekeraho.
Marie Louise Uwineza from Bakora Sector said that gender equality and complementarity should be characterized by cooperation, noting that those who do not understand it well are the ones who make others see it in a negative aspect.
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Local Government, Assumpta Ingabire said that gender quality and complementarity provide equal opportunities and equal rights for both sexes.
“People do not understand the principle of gender equality and complementarity the same way. There are women who understand this in their own way and men who will interpret this differently. In few words, it is meant to give equal opportunities to all children, women and men. If it is a school, everyone participates, if it’s a competition everyone comes, everyone has rights,” she said.
Ingabire further urged women and men who misunderstand this to change their mindsets if they are to build the Rwandan community and attain envisaged development.
“A place where this is fully understood, where a man respects his wife, the woman values her husband; they understand each other, move forward, take care of their children and work for their home’s progress, That’s what we want. We don’t want people to get married and become a burden to the government,” she noted.
The idea of becoming a technology hub surfaced in May 2016 at the World Economic Forum that took place in Kigali
Six years later, almost many services in the country are offered digitally. These include payment for travel, medical care, education, tourism, administrative services and more.
These efforts have lured Hence Technologies, a technology company from the United Kingdom (UK) into Rwanda for its dedication of promoting technology and the country’s support for businesses.
Hence Technologies is a Hence is a tech start-up that uses AI-driven data to help companies manage their legal outsourcing.
This company is based in Kimihurura in Kigali City where it provides various services.
Arun Shanmuganathan, a co-founder of Hence Technologies has told IGIHE that they decided to come to Rwanda as part of their plans to expand footprints in Africa.
”We are building technology that allows companies to make better decisions about which lawyers at the moment they should be using so that they can be able to save money and select better and get more value out of their lawyers,” he said.
Through this technology, Hence Technologies helps its associated companies access information that they can use day to day.
“The technology we are building is a single platform that integrates data from a variety of sources and captures it in a single system that allows you to easily maneuver search, filter and find information you need much more easily,” Shanmuganathan said.
The Business Development Manager at Hence Technologies, Nancy Ndekwe, also highlighted that they thought of helping companies to find lawyers by eliminating the existing gap.
” We found that the space given to the law is not being put into practice. We want to be able to build a solution that is not only built from the continent but is mostly targeted toward the global economy. So because of that legal frame seem to be the one that we want to tackle and take care of at this specific moment and so far it really is going well with the data and of course we are using AI to backup that up as well,” she noted.
In building this technology, Hence Technologies spoke with the world’s largest corporations, only to find that many were losing millions of dollars in legal fees.
Arun Shanmuganathan went on to explain that it prompted them to provide a related solution.
On the Rwandan market, Nancy said that they found that many people need to know the specific lawyers that they can work with.
“Within the Rwandan market and the African market, the law area hasn’t grown as much as we’ve seen globally. That’s also something that we want to be able to contribute for people to have that space to work around,” she said.
On reasons that pushed the company to open doors in Rwanda, Nancy explained that the country with ongoing efforts to advance technology is telling a story of how is it going to be in the tech hub.
“You don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to come up with a solution that works there. We are building it from here, from Rwanda, to be able to service within the global market,” she affirmed.
Silicon Valley, located in the United States of America, is considered the capital of the world’s leading technology companies.
Experts show that at least 2 percent of the biggest companies in the world in technology are the ones who create their development based on it, and they are the ones who plan the miracle projects that spread around the world after some time.
Shanmuganathan said that they saw Rwanda as a place that would contribute well to their goals.
“Rwanda is a great base, it is a great place to do business because a lot of people across the continent want to live here, because Investors are excited about coming here into a stable, secure environment. So, Rwanda is a great starting point because we can test out the product, we can try to get to know this market but really our ambitions are global including a lot of Africa so we imagine bringing talent from across the continent into Rwanda,” he noted.
After opening doors to Rwanda, Hence Technologies was pleased to find talented people who are passionate about creating technology that will solve the problems the world is facing.
“People we want to talk to here is everyone involved in the tech ecosystem. So, we are talking about entrepreneurs, we are talking about technologists, we are talking about investors, we are talking about everyone, your parents and educators. We really think that is important to realize that Rwanda is going up there, people from Rwanda are solving these problems or contribute to this ecosystem,” Shanmuganathan underscored.
He said that the main problems they see most companies face is that they often use different lawyers without knowing who is in the right position to handle their cases appropriately.
At the global level, Hence Technologies works with leading companies. In Rwanda, it focuses on while in Rwanda it focuses on education services.
Hence Technologies employs approximately 25 different employees from 11 countries.
