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Simon Mizrahi from the OECD DAC Secretariat, who has been on the front-line of establishing targets for the Paris Declaration over recent months, was in Rwanda recently to promote the Declaration. He shares his observations of how the new aid effectiveness agenda is being translated in countries like Rwanda.
I was last in Kigali in 1994 for Médecins du Monde, only weeks after Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) had taken over the country. Arriving in the city again in August 2005 could not have been more different. Then, it was a ghost city. Today I was giving a presentation on the Paris Declaration, at the invitation of the Rwandan government and the UNDP, in a hotel which had been completely gutted in 1994, but was now a gleaming international venue.
Before I had been struck by the emptiness of Kigali, its silence, the burned out cars and more shocking, the human devastation. Today I could admire Kigali as the beautiful garden city that it was always meant to be.
The reconstruction of Rwanda over the last ten years is one of the great achievements of the people of Rwanda, but also of the development partnerships between Rwanda and donors community who have delivered aid in that country. And getting development partnerships right is at the heart of the Paris Declaration.
The workshop brought together representatives from six countries (Rwanda, The Gambia, Tanzania, Sudan, Mozambique and Niger) plus the UNDP and the OECD DAC. I was there to talk about the Paris Declaration and the overwhelming consensus amongst rich and poorer countries to make aid more effective.
We talked about how the Paris Declaration is seeking to make a difference by promoting a shift from a culture of donorship to a culture of ownership. Clearly the emphasis on the principle of ownership is not new: it has been upheld in most international agreements on development over the last 50 years. What is new, however, is an effort to translate the principle into an actionable framework that underpins the Paris Declaration.
But what was also recognised is that national ownership of aid policies and management is extremely difficult to achieve, especially in countries where ODA represents between 6-25% of the Gross National Income. It was good to see countries like Rwanda now at the stage of developing their second Poverty Reduction Strategy, but this time with a greater sense of ownership and with more of a basis for the genuine involvement of relevant ministers.
I was struck by how much was underway in Rwanda to translate the Paris Declaration into a local context and create a Rwanda version of the Declaration, just as Vietnam has created the Hanoi Core Statement. The number of donors who feel confident enough to channel their aid funds through Rwanda’s own budget systems has increased to five (and possibly six by 2006) which is a good sign of progress.
What came out clearly from the discussion is that each country needs to develop its own mode of progress towards the Paris Declaration targets.
There was much in Rwanda to be hopeful about, not least the Co-ordination Unit set up with the mandate to apply the Paris Declaration in Rwanda, with the help of the UNDP and other donors.
When I arrived in Kigali in 1994 with a doctor, a nurse and an engineer I wondered if I’d ever return. But here I was, ten years later working with Rwandans and others to make aid more effective, in a bustling city with a future.
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