French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in Rwanda today after meeting with President Paul Kagame. This is the first time a French president has visited the country in 25 years.
The trip is also the first by a French leader since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. It aims to cement diplomatic ties that were restored in November, three years after they broke down because of the arrest warrants that accused those close to Kagame of a role in the presidential assassination that sparked the genocide.
Sarkozy was met at Kigali’s airport by Rwanda’s prime minister and then visited the main genocide museum in the tiny, mountainous central African country. Afterward Kagame welcomed Sarkozy at his official residence.
France and Rwanda have sparred for years over an alleged French role in the genocide, in which 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were massacred in frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
For those who might not have otherwise been aware, Roger Thurow is author and editor of “Global Food for Thought” a blog that “provides updated information, commentary, and analysis on breaking developments on international agriculture, food, and related issues.” Roger, as you’ll recall, recently wrote “Enough” which we covered on the ONE Blog here and here.
Today he has a new post looking at U.S. agricultural development assistance efforts toward Africa. This comes on the 1-year anniversary of President Obama’s inaugural address when he declared “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.”
You can read Roger’s post here, short excerpt below:
Elemental as it may sound, boosting agriculture production in the developing world hasn’t been a priority for a long time. It is one of the gobsmacking outrages of international politics that for the past two decades rich world aid for agriculture development in the poorest countries, particularly Africa, has dramatically declined, falling by more than half from its peak in the early-1980s. Rather than fight hunger with long-term agriculture development, the world relied on providing emergency food relief from surplus production in the West.
The food crisis of 2008 exposed the danger of that strategy. Soaring commodity prices and plunging surpluses triggered riots over scarce and expensive staple foods like rice and corn in dozens of developing countries. In Haiti, which had been directed by international development strategists to rely on imports of cheap food from places like the U.S. rather than feed itself, street protests toppled the government when that cheap food suddenly became very expensive. A large part of Haiti’s impoverishment now on heartbreaking display after the earthquake had been fostered by this strategy that intentionally left Haiti dependent on others for staple foods.
Rwanda had also been suffering from the neglect of agriculture. Typical of sub-Saharan Africa, about three-quarters of Rwanda’s population depends on farming for its own food and a bit of income. Agriculture provides one-third of the national income. Yet Rwanda’s rural infrastructure is underdeveloped. A lack of irrigation leaves it almost wholly dependent on rain. The hills are scarred with erosion. Markets are weak, transport is difficult, seed research is scarce. Since the genocide of 1994 ravaged the countryside, hunger reigned.
Check out this Copenhagen post from our friends at Manna Energy Limited. Manna Ltd. is installing several hundred water treatment systems, biogas generators, and high efficiency cook stoves across rural Rwanda, addressing the most critical public health and environmental challenges.
Mugonero sits atop a hill on the western border of Rwanda, accessible only by a red dirt road riddled with bumps and hairpin switchbacks. In a small chapel, on the grounds of a missionary hospital that overlooks the Congo and sparkling Lake Kivu, 3,000 people were massacred in 1994. The Mugonero community is still struggling with how to rebuild after these brutal acts.
Manna Energy Limited — a social enterprise founded to combine the carbon finance market with innovative technologies in an economically sustainable way — is committed to partnering with Mugonero and other communities across Rwanda to help implement sustainable, environmentally sound technologies for clean energy, clean water, and economic solutions that foster health, education and gender equality.
For example, in 2007 at the Mugonero Orphanage in Rwanda, Manna Ltd. and Engineers Without Borders – USA installed a treatment system that is now providing water for 100 AIDS and genocide orphans. As Victor Monroy, the Guatemalan director of the orphanage told us, “The Children’s Village did not have clean water available on-site for the past six years. The only available option to drink pure water was to boil it. Due to the long and relatively complicated process of boiling water, quite often the children decided not to boil the water and suffered from digestive and intestinal problems. Now there is plenty of pure water available to cover all the needs of the orphanage. We are convinced that the health of all our kids will improve considerably through the precious and abundant supply of pure drinking water.”
Manna Ltd. is working to expand these programs through the benefits of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by generating Carbon Emission Reductions (CERs) from the offset of firewood used to provide basic water and energy needs. We hope that the Copenhagen conference will further enable small-scale projects like these in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)—something that is especially important in LDCs that adopt a policy to offset the use of firewood by replacing it with renewable energy technologies. We also hope that the US will take a leading role in supporting these activities and similar US-based efforts.
With the magnitude of the destruction that occurred in Mugonero and the rest of Rwanda, the challenge of rebuilding the country is immense. Community leaders are working everyday towards improving the quality of life for everyone. But where you might expect a feeling of helplessness, there is instead a common determination to rebuild. Manna is committed to being a part of this effort. We hope those at Copenhagen are, too.
Check out the video below to learn more about Manna Energy Limited and all that we do.
-Evan Thomas, Executive Vice President, Manna Energy Limited
Check out this guest post from Indego Africa volunteer Sarah Dunigan. For more Indego Africa stories, check out their blog, Social Enterprising:
I am often asked what drives me to volunteer in Africa. I find it hard to put into words, but sharing a story often helps.
For the past two months I have had the pleasure of volunteering for Indego Africa, an innovative social enterprise empowering hundreds of women in Rwanda to lift themselves out of poverty by selling their fair trade handicrafts and returning 100% of profits to fund training programs in business management, entrepreneurship, microfinance, computers and literacy. Until recently, Indego Africa’s cooperative partners, Cocoki and Covanya, had never sold their handicrafts in the local Rwandan market. Instead, orders have always been picked up at the cooperatives by Indego Africa and shipped to the United States. But last Friday, at the U.S. Embassy Holiday Crafts Fair here in Rwanda, everything changed.
The cooperatives were in full preparation mode in the weeks leading up to the fair. The foot-powered sewing machines at Cocoki whirred as the artisans created their unique textile products. Rows of women lined the floor at Covanya weaving and individually signing the tags on their brightly colored baskets. They even requested that Indego Africa lead extra training sessions on business English, product pricing and accounting.
When the day of the fair arrived, the women were still feeling a bit unsure of themselves. Upon arrival at the market, we even discovered that other handicraft organizations were, unfortunately, not represented by their artisans. But the women took a collective deep breath and got to it – and the customers responded!
Covanya nearly cleared out their entire inventory of baskets, and Cocoki’s yoga bags and laptop sleeves were flying off the table. The women’s English rapidly improved as they answered questions about pricing and styles. They handled the money, wrote out receipts, and even balanced their receipt books against their cash drawer at the end of the day to make sure they matched.
This was a defining moment for the women of Indego Africa. They were learning by doing and the result was a dramatic increase of confidence in their capabilities as independent businesswomen. As the number of products dwindled, Daphrose, a master weaver at Covanya, turned to me and said through a huge smile, “This gives us courage!”
In the IFC-World Bank Doing Business 2010 report released yesterday, for the first time a sub-Saharan African country—Rwanda—was named the world’s top reformer of business regulations, based on the number and impact of reforms implemented. Doing Business is an annual report that ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet government requirements for starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business.
In Rwanda, it now takes an entrepreneur just two procedures and three days to start a business. Imports and exports are more efficient, and transferring property takes less time thanks to a reorganized registry and time limits. Investors have more protection, insolvency reorganization has been streamlined, and a wider range of assets can be used as collateral to access credit.
Mauritius, ranked 17 globally, is the top sub-Saharan economy for the second year in a row in terms of the overall regulatory ease of doing business.
However, despite these advances, more reforms are needed in Africa. The average rank for sub-Saharan African countries remain the lowest of any region.
Globally, the report shows that despite the financial and economic crisis, a record 131 economies reformed business regulations between June 2008 and April 2009. Singapore is the top-ranked economy on the ease of doing business for the fourth year in a row, but most of the action occurred in developing economies. Two-thirds of the reforms recorded in the report were in low- and lower-middle-income economies.
Check out this excellent blog post from Mr. Paul Rusesabagina who was portrayed in the film “Hotel Rwanda”:
More than 800,000 men, women and children were killed in the horrific Rwandan genocide of 1994 – including many of my friends and family members.
Perhaps you saw the film Hotel Rwanda, in which actor Don Cheadle portrayed me. Cheadle, Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Sophie Okonedo and their fellow cast members highlighted the challenges my family and I faced working to save approximately 1,200 Hutus and Tutsis from genocidal killers who surrounded the hotel I managed in Kigali.
Sadly, the actions that led to the Rwandan genocide have never been fully revealed. The ethnic and political conflicts that preceded the genocide continue to this day and have spilled over Rwanda’s borders. This means that justice has not been done for victims or survivors. It also means that related violence is continuing in nations bordering Rwanda such as the Congo, where 5 million have now died.
You can help change this. Click here to send a free message asking international leaders to support the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation’s call for an internationally administered Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes Rwanda, the Congo, Burundi and Uganda.
This is the only way to truly heal the wounds left by the genocide and bring justice to victims and survivors from all backgrounds.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize winners, established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on apartheid era crimes in South Africa. This helped to bring more closure to that painful, violent period of their nation’s history. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in other nations have laid the important groundwork for peace.
Is justice for genocide survivors and victims worth a minute of your time? If so, please click here to send a free, instant message to world leaders in support of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
As someone who witnessed the barbarity of the Rwanda killings firsthand, I urge you from the bottom of my heart to join our efforts to support true democracy and ensure that genocide never happens again. Thank you so much for your support.
Sincerely,
Paul Rusesabagina, Founder of Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation
In light of a recent New Times headline stating that Rwanda President Paul Kagame was moving to “shun” development aid, The New Times published a letter today from David Himbara of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s office clarifying President Kagame’s position. Himbara clearly states:
“The President’s position is very clear – and cannot just be summarised as a call to “shun aid”…Now, as the President has repeatedly said, we in Rwanda, along with other less developed countries, need initial and temporary support to build the foundations to enable us, for ourselves, to create prosperity.”
Good aid, if you will, is assistance with a purpose – the purpose to support a countries’ development in their own terms, for the benefit of many not the few. In contrast, bad aid is often tied to vested interests and does little to promote real development.
He does not condemn all aid – only bad aid. He has never called to setting timelines for ending aid for any country, let alone Rwanda, especially given that we still receive substantial amounts of support – around just under fifty percent of our budget – from external assistance, which we still require in order for us to develop and prosper.
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More than 800,000 men, women and children were killed in the horrific Rwandan genocide of 1994 – including many of my friends and family members.
