President Paul Kagame reiterated that aid to developing countries has been weaponized and used as a tool of control and create dependency. He said this in an interview with Mario Nawfal, an American blogger and host of one of the largest social media shows, who was in Rwanda last week, to discuss among other things, DR Congo crisis and the handicap of foreign aid over developing countries. ALSO READ: DR Congo crisis: Rwanda only concerned by FDLR security threat, not minerals – Kagame Kagame said that while Rwanda appreciates aid, and still need it to an extent, it has been a standard to use it to build capacities for the country to be able to wean itself off it. “Aid creates dependency. Whoever gives you aid, controls your life, Kagame said. In fact, that is why they want you to stay with aid, so they continue controlling your life. They use it as a tool to direct you where they want you to go. They keep threatening that if you don’t do this, we will switch it off. It is [politically] weaponized.” Over the past decades, Rwanda has made deliberate efforts to gradually cut dependency on foreign aid used in the country’s development programmes by focusing on home-grown solutions and improving domestic resource funding and attract investment. Depending on how it is managed, Kagame said that aid is a liability to a country. He noted that Rwanda's has received criticism for its long-term vision of getting off aid. “We need it, we can show where we need it but we also work out how to get out of it ... But that has attracted a lot of problems for us. We have been branded as arrogant or insensitive or dictatorial -- all kind of names.” He noted however that Rwanda is not simply against development aid. It's not that we don't want aid for the sake of not wanting it; we are saying aid creates dependency. By the way, it's not only dependency -- dependency is on the good side, or even the better side -- whoever gives you aid controls your life, he said. This comes at a time when Western countries have taken steps to sanction Rwanda, including freezing aid and development partnerships, over accusations of its involvement in DR Congo crisis pitting government forces and the AFC/M23 rebels. Kigali has, on several occasions, reiterated that freezing financial assistance will do nothing to fix DR Congo’s governance failures, nor will it bring meaningful change to the lives of the millions caught in the crossfire.
