RWANDA: UN reports on Country Cooperation Framework

Two UN agencies have released a report on a five-year blueprint that aims to promote and consolidate good government in Rwanda as well as enhance the management capability of its poverty eradication programme as the country moves form a situation of emergency to one of development.

The report, by the UN Development Programme and the UN Population Fund, is on the second Country Cooperation Framework for Rwanda.

The blueprint, valid for 2002 to 2006, places greater emphasis on advocacy and advisory initiatives, according to the UN report. The plan calls for much fewer and well-focused programmatic interventions, as well as clearer partnerships and resource mobilisation strategies. Particular attention is to be given to the improvement of staff skills in the formulation of policy and strategy.

In the area of good governance, the plan focuses on activities that strengthen society; those that promote reconciliation and human rights, administrative staff skills improvements and decentralisation, transparency and accountability.

On the economic management front, the plan is to support poverty eradication initiatives, the coordination and management of aid, as well as HIV/AIDS prevention and control.

According to the report, much of Rwanda's physical and social infrastructure still needs to be rehabilitated or replaced. There is a critical shortage of professionals and other skilled people, as they constituted a disproportionate percentage of the 1994 genocide victims. Access to adequate shelter, and to land, remains one of Rwanda's most critical needs, it says.

Women now account for 54 percent of the population and head 34 percent of all households. Orphans are estimated to represent 26 percent of children under 14 years, and children head some 13 percent of households, according to the report.

HIV/AIDS prevalence has risen from relatively low levels in the early 1990s, and - influenced by rape during the genocide and other social consequences of that national trauma - now approaches 13.7 percent in the 15-40-year age bracket, according to the report. Average HIV/AIDS prevalence for sub-Sahara Africa is 8.7 percent.

Theme (s): Other,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]