RWANDA: Sweden finally gives an extra $7 million to fight poverty

KIGALI, 11 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The Swedish government gave Rwanda a US $7 million grant on Thursday, to help finance the country's budget deficit and its poverty-reduction strategies.

The money came in addition to Sweden's regular financial aid to Rwanda - which has amounted to $20 million so far this year - that has been spent on decentralisation, good-governance and poverty-reduction programmes.

"The intention is that everything that we are supporting should have the objective of building Rwandan capacity," said Bo Goransson, the Swedish ambassador to Rwanda, who is resident in Nairobi, Kenya.

In fact, the donation came four months later than originally intended. It was held up in November 2004 when Rwanda threatened to invade neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rwandan government wanted to pursue Hutu rebels who had fired rockets on one of its villages a month earlier, wounding three civilians.

"The November incident created a scenario of uncertainty because of the accusations and counter-accusations, and forced us to halt the disbursement of the funds," Goransson said. "But we are now pleased that the situation has been normalised."

Goransson also signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with the Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande, whereby Sweden pledged continued support for Rwanda's poverty-reduction, education and good-governance programmes.

"We have embarked on numerous programmes geared at uplifting the lives of our people; such assistance from friends like Sweden is indeed very vital," said Murigande.

Rwanda's "Vision 2020" programme has several ambitious aims: to increase per capita income from $230 to $900; to reduce the number of people living on less than a dollar per day from 55 percent to 25 percent; and to improve the population's literacy rate from the current 40 percent to 90 percent.

[ENDS]