BY
DR. DONALD KABERUKA MINISTER FOR
FINANCE AND ECONOMIC PLANNING
Chairperson,
1. The Government and People of Rwanda, through your humble
servant, would like to express deep appreciation to UNCTAD, the European Union,
the People and the Government of Belgium for organising and facilitating this
Conference. My country, one of the poorest of the group of the LDC, attaches
great importance to this session and will, along with other LDCs and
development partners present here strive for its success. As World Bank President
Wolfehnson put it on monday, we are all challenged to give hope to 10% of the
world who live on only 1 % of the world GDP.
2.
We
have all learnt lessons - positive and negative as to why previous plans of
action failed to deliver. This time around we cannot afford to fail. All of us:
Development partners and LDC countries should be on one side, with the aim of
producing concrete recommendations, which we can all translate into action. The
600 million poorest people of this planet are waiting. As we have been holding
conference after conference, year in year out our analysis on poverty issues
getting more and more sophisticated they have been getting poorer and poorer.
3. I believe an adequate diagnosis is being made; the key issues that need to be addressed have been pointed out. Let me cite a few, which we all have heard this week.
Success
will depend on political will and determination to work together, donor
governments, LDCs, private sector, civil society in all our countries with
the poor themselves empowered to influence policies.
We in LDCs have to face to our
responsibilities. The primary duty is ours. We must establish a framework for
peace, good governance, economic growth and an appropriate environment for
investment both local and external, appropriate infrastructures, human
resources development by LDCs will provide the ground to attract investment.
But all this will be unproductive unless market access, quota free , duty free
of LDC goods is made possible and other forms of non tariff barriers removed.
Without increased trade, LDCs will depend on ODA forever, they could not
attract investments and the targets set by the Millenium Summit, to reduce by
half the number of people in poverty by 2015 can not be attained.
Market access is a necessary but insufficient condition. Many LDCs have supply side bottlenecks that have to be overcome; marginalization from globalisation and the digital divide will remain real unless we address these bottlenecks which often means that even when the limited access is there LDCs have not fully taken advantage.
HIV/ AIDS is more than a health crisis for LDCs it is a development challenge of our time; prevention alone is no longer adequate , the various initiatives on treatment including access to affordable drugs is imperative.
Conflicts neutralize the development agenda, indeed 25% of LDCs are conflicts affected. But we need to address the root causes of the conflicts if we are to secure lasting peace and stability needed for development. We need to adequately analyse and respond to root causes of those conflicts.
Debt cancellation is a commendable step but alone and not accompanied by increased ODA would not achieve the desired results.
Chairperson.
4. I could add to the list of very pertinent observations we are all drawing this week. However two fundamental questions will remain: Have we drawn adequate lessons as to why previous initiatives did not succeed?
Are we all, donors and recipients each on our side prepared to do something qualitatively different to insure success this time?
5. It is Rwanda belief that Political commitment to fight poverty is growing. We all see the need to reverse the declining ODA trends , to improve aid effectiveness, to secure market access, get debt relief with additional ODA attract investment into LDCs and work to remove supply side constraints.
Above
all I see a crucial consensus: that graduation from high levels of dependence
on ODA, which though needed in short term to bridge the gap of weak trade and
investment, will never provide adequate resources for financing development.
Where the above has happened, the graduation from reliance on OD, we see that
it is possible to vanquish poverty; China and South East Asia demonstrates that
via expansion of trade investing in people, high rates of savings and good quality
infrastructures poverty can be vanquished in a generation.
Aid is important and LDs will need aid for some time but on its own it cannot deliver the needed historically high rates of growth unless LDCs are enabled to fully participate in world trade, Investment and if we ourselves are able to mobilize Domestic savings, again as happened in South East Asian countries with saving rate of above 30%.
Chairperson,
6.
It
is also evident to me that while we should all aim at the 2015International
Development targets, the aim should not be to focus on these targets in an
artificial way. We see them as a framework. a road map each of us aiming to
translate them into national objectives with a clear monitoring mechanism which
enables us to continuously gage progress on that road. This is important
because Country conditions are specific and vary, so must national programmes.
7.
There
is much discussion at this Conference and rightly so about the need to increase
ODA which has been declining in the 1990's. But we should also like to see a
qualitative improvement in aid administration. We believe this is best done by
a pact between Donors and recipients, which provided a number of conditions are
met, puts obligations on both parties.
· The LDCs make clear commitments, to have a nationally owned PRSP derived from a broad participatory process and work towards a transparent system of budget and accounting within a broad agenda of good political and economic governance.
· Donors make the undertaking to ensure that no country meeting the above conditions, would fail to attain its objectives for lack of support. But the Donor commitment would have also to do something different, especially from stop and go and one sided conditionalities. Available resources must be flexible, predictable and committed long term. An more crucially all the resources should be increasingly channelled through the budget.
·
Furthermore, as matters stand today receiving aid can
be a costly process, especially for countries with low capacity like my own. My
country, and I am sure all LDCs, urge for a reduction in transaction costs of
aid by way of harmonized procedures, reduced number of studies, a more
effective technical Assistance, and other demands that strain national capacity
but have little value added.
· Both sides, donors and recipients must be open to peer review of their programmes and performance and even be prepared to accept third party monitoring within a framework of mutuallv binding obligations. The era of one sided conditions, stop go policies must steadily disappear.
· There will of course be countries unable to immediately subscribe to the above commitments, in that case different approach may be needed in the interim as they progressively work to the above conditions.
· The case of "post conflict" countries must be given special flexible treatment. We know that in the case of these countries, normal criteria of performance cannot apply, yet with adequate flexible support they can be expected to make progress. The essential element is to judiciously sequence aid as between emergency and long term development and avoids demands that fragilizes the State.
Chairperson,
9. The compact for African Recovery under development bye the ECA at the request of African Finance Ministers articulates this approach which my Government finds appropriate. Rwanda stands ready to be an active partner in this process, with other LDCs, and with our Development partners.
We do so fully cognizant of challenges we face. In the first five years after the 1990 Paris LDC Conference, my country suffered one of the truly human calamities of our time. The State sponsored genocide of1994. One million killed in three months, the social and economic infrastructure destroyed, half a million orphans and abandoned children, over 150.000 child and widow headed households, two million refugee; and to cap it, the militias and their leaders who orchestrated this catastrophy to our country proceeded to seek refuge in the DRC where they continue to freely threaten our people. This is the reason - the only one- Rwanda had on two occasions in 1996 and 1998 intervened in the DRC; to prevent these criminals who were benefiting from active DRC support and encouragement. Our people could not stand by and wait to die.
The first thing poor people
everywhere is physical security, the knowledge and assurance that
nobody, individual or the State could harm them, their families and their
property. None more so than the people of my country realise this.
Chairperson,
10. My Delegation has listened to declarations from two eminent personalities at this Conference on the conflict in the Great Lakes, with some regret, especially because they should know better.
Rwanda's involvement in the DRC has been and remains solely for its security. A framework to resolving the crisis in the Great Lakes Region of Africa has been negotiated and is enshmned in the Lusaka Peace process. Rwanda remains fully committed to the process; we are and have demonstrated that we are fulfilling all our obligations under this Treaty.
Rwanda urges all those who want, or who say that they want peace in the Great Lakes to throw their weight behind the process. Threats open or implied, recriminations and posturing such as we heard on the first day and yesterday from two delegations can only delay progress which the People of the Region needs.
My country has made heroic efforts with the support of like minded members of the International Community to recover from the events of 1994, reconcile our nation and reconstruct our country. The trauma and sequels for Rwanda remain real. Nothing will bring back one million killed to their families and their loved ones but we can all do much to help survivors lead a decent life. The first thing these poor people want is physical security. We can play our part to ensure that criminals suspected of committing those evil crimes against humanity are not given solace let alone support, but brought to justice and punished. Above all we can do much to ensure that the International Community work with us to bring sustainable peace, security and stability for all in the Great Lakes Region.
Chairperson,
11. Rwanda joins with other LDC members at this Conference, other development partners here to work tirelessly this week and in the coming months and years to agree on and implement an action programme that indeed gives hope to the 600 millions suffering poor people in our countries.
I want to assure you that the Govemment and People of Rwanda will spare no effort in playing its part to ensure that this time we can succeed in this greatest challenge of our time.
Thank you for your attention.
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