Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, who is presently on a visit to Japan, has expressed hope that Japan will balance its efforts to rebuild from the devastating quake and tsunami and keep supporting the world’s poor.
The minister, who came to Japan for a two-day international meeting on poverty reduction through Friday, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News that she appreciates Tokyo for hosting the conference as scheduled, despite the massive disaster.
“I applaud Japan for making sure that some of its important commitments are maintained,” Mushikiwabo said.
“That does not take away from the necessity for Japan to pay close attention to investing into this reconstruction,” she said. “But in this global world, it is also to the benefit of Japan, as a country that is quite well-positioned globally, to keep its commitments.”
The minister said Rwanda respects Japan’s sovereign decision to cut its official development assistance by around 10 percent for fiscal 2011 from the initial plan to raise funds for recovery efforts from the March calamities.
“I have no doubt that this reconstruction is going to cost money, and it’s quite normal that the Japanese people want to rebuild their own nation,” Mushikiwabo said. She added that the Central African country, not foreign donors, is responsible for the well-being of its own nationals.
“So long as the spirit of support and help for other nations remains, I think this is just a time that has brought that necessity,” the minister said.
At the ministerial meeting to explore effective ways to implement the eight-point U.N. Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction, Rwanda expects to learn lessons from other countries in its endeavor to fulfill the targets set in 2000 to be achieved by 2015, Mushikiwabo said.
The MDG include halving abject poverty by 2015 from 1990 levels, stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, reducing child mortality and ensuring primary education is made available to all.
The minister said Rwanda, whose economy has been expanding at a fast pace, has “done very well” with many of the targets and is set to achieve all of the MDG by 2015. But she noted that the level of poverty “don’t necessary come down quickly,” if the wealth is not shared properly.
She said Rwanda counts on technical and vocational training from Japan, as the country has “a number of retired, very skilled people.”
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