The decision taken by the government of Rwanda to create Rwanda Cooperation - an agency mandated with sharing Rwanda’s innovative initiatives with the rest of the world – is already bearing fruits in contributing to the adoption of home-grown initiatives and good practices by partner countries, to address development challenges common to developing countries. Over the past two decades, Rwanda has been receiving upwards of 100 delegations from across the world annually, wishing to understand the drivers of the country’s transformation in different sectors over the past two decades. The lack of a specialized entity in charge of receiving these delegations meant that ministries and government agencies took on the responsibility in an ad hoc and unplanned manner. Public officials were incurring a heavy burden in terms of time taken away from their work to focus on receiving said delegations. Furthermore, when the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) was adopted, it outlined the need for a mechanism to raise awareness of Rwanda’s Home-Grown Initiatives and Good Practices (collectively called innovative initiatives) locally and internationally, as a means to accelerate Rwanda and Africa’s development. These necessities led to the creation of Rwanda Cooperation in 2018, as the institution mandated with coordinating and streamlining all of Rwanda’s South-South and Triangular Cooperation activities. Rosine Urujeni, Rwanda Cooperation’s acting CEO, says that the framework of South-South and Triangular Cooperation within which the company operates allows state entities as well as institutions in the Global South to collaborate in sharing the knowledge, skills, resources, as well as technology necessary to drive their mutual growth and development, and also allows the participation of third party development partners in ensuring the successful implementation of projects that arise from that collaboration. “There is a huge growing interest in South-South Cooperation. Developing countries from the Global South that have similar contexts and development challenges can really learn from each other, and take inspiration from each other’s successes to fashion tools to transform nations, especially through regional and interregional collective actions. That is why Rwanda, for example, is working with the Central African Republic and Mozambique on solutions to matters of security and development” she said. Rwanda’s role in knowledge sharing Despite still being a developing Low-Income Country, Rwanda has made tremendous advances across many socio-economic development indicators such as health, poverty reduction, education, economic growth, and more. In many instances, these advancements have been record setting. While the policies that have driven this growth are not unique to Rwanda, the country has set itself apart with its ability to use limited resources to overcome development challenges. According to Aude Ntawebasa, Rwanda Cooperation’s Senior Office Manager, this ability was made possible through a search for homegrown responses to Rwanda’s challenges, and values of ownership and accountability that have been consistently applied throughout the country’s transformation trajectory. “The challenges that Rwanda faces are shared by many Global South countries, owing to factors like history, culture, demography, and the state of the economy. These similar factors provide an opportunity for countries to benchmark on what has worked for others, and slightly adapt them to their local realities.” Ntawebasa says. Ntawebasa maintains that Rwandas role in South-South Cooperation, and indeed that of Rwanda Cooperation is to be viewed in this context, of exchanging know-how and successes with Global South partners, exchange implying that as they are inspired by Rwanda’s achievements, Rwanda is similarly inspired by theirs, to continue its development journey. The focus on innovative initiatives explained According to Ms. Urujeni, Rwandas own history, but also that of other developing nations, particularly in Africa, is testament to the fact that when state-building and development policies are not firmly based on a nations own values, and are not supported, owned and implemented by the nations citizens, they more often than not fail to achieve sustainable peace and development for citizens. Rwandas search for Home-Grown Initiatives came from a desire to rebuild the nation on foundations other than those that had led it to the brink in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, and it was important for the nation to take a hard look within and remind itself of the elements of our culture and traditions that had sustained its unity and relative prosperity for centuries before colonisation. The 1998 Urugwiro Village discussions provided the initial roadmap for this search. Since then, home-grown initiatives have been continuously identified and adapted to current needs, to provide the results we see today. But Home-Grown Initiatives are not the only focus of the country. As with the meaning of South-South Cooperation itself, Rwanda understands the importance of learning from others, adopt those of their solutions that work for the country, and adapting them to answer to local contexts. While these “Good Practices” are not uniquely Rwandan, they have greatly contributed to the country getting where it is today. These Good Practices have also heavily made use of ICT to improve citizens’ access to the government, ensure accountability and transparency, ensure effective use of public funds, and reduce corruption. This is true for initiatives such as Irembo, the Umucyo electronic procurement portal, the electronic land management system, among others. Urujeni says contributing factors to the success of innovative initiatives include their citizen-centred design, their focus on accountability and social cohesion, but also, crucially, their interconnected nature. “Take Ubudehe for example. The program categorizes citizens by level of wealth, then through the Vision Umurenge Program, the most vulnerable are provided social protection safety nets through direct financial support and public works, eventually helping them to graduate out of extreme poverty. The Girinka (One Cow per Poor Family) program comes in to support them financially through the sale of cow milk, while at the same time combatting malnutrition and stunting. Girinka also contributes to strengthening social bonds by requiring beneficiaries to donate the first calf to their poor neighbors” Urujeni says. “At the same time, the same Ubudehe categories inform the identification of families in need of medical insurance through the Community-Based Health Insurance or mutuelles de sante. Umuganda enters into the picture as citizens participate in the construction of health centers, and Community Health Workers then work directly with medical professionals at these health centers to improve health in the community” she continues. A global gateway Rwanda Cooperation was created with a vision to become a global gateway for knowledge exchange on development. Bruce Intwali Murangira, Rwanda Cooperation’s Marketing and Communication Manager says this vision is on track to become a reality. “Through our study visit coordination services, we have hosted more 1,400 delegates hailing from over 41 countries in Africa, South Asia and Europe since 2018, and have shared Rwanda’s experiences and know-how with them in areas such as gender equality, judicial reforms, ease of doing business, community health management, environmental protection, and more” Bruce says. He says Rwanda Cooperation also provides trainings in and outside of Rwanda, which are developed and facilitated by experts from the repository institutions of Rwanda’s innovative initiatives. A delegation from the Federal Health Ministry of Ethiopia pays a courtesy call to Rwandan health minister Daniel Ngamije during a study visit. Furthermore, the company works with foreign governments and institutions wishing to emulate Rwanda’s innovative initiatives, by providing them with advisory assistance or implementing projects in said countries. In a notable example of successful South-South Cooperation, Rwandan experts have been working with the government of Chad to set up the Integrated Financial Management Information system (IFMIS) since 2019, through the collaboration between Rwanda Cooperation, and the Rwandan and Chadian finance ministries. IFMIS is now operational and the country’s budget for 2021/2022 was prepared through the system. The payments of public officials’ salaries are also being processed through the system, solving the issue of ghost workers. Mr. Intwali Murangira also notes that in order to realize Rwanda Cooperation’s vision, the company is venturing into the adoption of technologies to provide an improved experience to partners accessing Rwanda’s know-how. The company’s Rwandapedia platform offers access to a wide range of courses on initiatives to development challenges by drawing on Rwanda’s history and providing a rich remote learning experience, and is accessible to researchers, policymakers, journalists, public servants and students. Rwanda Cooperation is also developing a state-of-the-art Virtual Exhibition Room that will take visitors on an interactive tour of Rwanda’s development journey, explain its most important drivers, and illustrate contributions made in the social, economic, and political development of the country throughout the years. As for what the future holds, “We are forging partnerships with like-minded institutions and shall keep advocating for and working towards a future in which the development of Global South countries, and especially African countries is fully owned by them” says Ms. Urujeni.
