`We are trying to make things work'
Friday, 14 February 2014 11:39 Raphael Esupu

President Kagame reflects on Rwanda's post-genocide recovery
President Paul Kagame (L) speaks during the Africa Innovation Summit
held in Cape Verde.
Rwanda's post-genocide government had to draw solutions from the
country's culture and tradition in dealing with numerous important
sector problems, including in justice, education, health, agriculture,
governance and poverty reduction, President Paul Kagame said during
the recent Africa Innovation Summit held in Cape Verde.
The president mentioned that Gacaca, the traditional justice system
used to try cases of genocide perpetrators and Imihigo which can be
loosely translated to mean performance contracts signed by all the
district Mayors as some of the home-grown innovations Rwanda adopted
to steer a head after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which
claimed one million lives, leaving the economy into scattered pieces.
"One of the key issues the post-genocide government in Rwanda had to
manage was how to deliver justice in a country with a non-existent
judicial system. Prosecuting all the hundreds of thousands of suspects
in conventional courts, which didn't even exist at the time, would
have taken hundreds of years or been just impossible," President
Kagame said. He said the government turned to Gacaca to solve
disputes and maintain national harmony.
"We decided to modernise this Gacaca system to deliver justice, and
promote truth-telling about the genocide crime that had happened,"
president Kagame said.
Between 2002 and 2012, Kagame said, 52,000 Gacaca courts across the
country tried two million cases, at the cost of less than one billion
dollars, the present said.
Comparing the cost-effectiveness of Gacaca courts and the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set up in 1995 in
the Tanzanian town of Arusha to try genocide cases, president Kagame
noted that whereas Gacaca tried two million cases at a cost of less
than one billion dollars, the ICTR has so far tried only 60 cases in
19 years at the cost of two billion dollars.
Although the Gacaca system has faced heavy criticism from human rights
activists and organisations such as the Human Rights Watch, saying the
judges lacked competence to try the genocide cases thus resulting into
unnecessary punishments or acquittals, the Rwandan government believes
that Gacaca solved one of the fundamental challenges to the unity and
reconciliation of the Rwandan people.
"Gacaca may not be an innovation in the sense we often think of it,
but this new approach, this transformative justice, allowed the nation
of Rwanda to heal, and continue pursuing socio-economic
transformation," Kagame said.
Kagame also shared Rwanda's experience on the performance contracts
signed by all the 30 district Mayors in the country and have been
institutionalised in all the public institutions to ensure better
results against the set targets.
The concept of Imihigo dates back to Rwanda's pre-colonial period
where individuals would set targets or goals and publicly pledge to
achieve them in a specific time period. But the current version of
this practise is much more structured and can be monitored and
evaluated.
Kagame termed the Imihigo as a "home-grown" solution which the
government re-introduced to "instil good governance and improve
service delivery".
"We decided to adapt Imihigo because following decentralisation in
2000; we needed a way for the central government and Rwandans, to
ensure accountability, in the implementation of development programs
led by the local government," president Kagame further noted.
The performance contracts, which contain annual targets planned
together with the communities and authorities, are assessed quarterly.
So far, Kagame said, this innovation in governance has contributed to
accelerating development at all levels, ensuring accountability and
transparency of the government.
Innovations as a result of circumstances
Rwanda has many innovations in governance and public service delivery
and President Kagame says that some of the innovations that are paying
dividends today have been brought on by the circumstances in which the
country finds itself.
"For example, in working to get every citizen to participate in
national development, we have looked to different institutions,
including in many cases, the unexpected ones, like our Army and
National Police," Kagame said.
"Having achieved peace and security throughout the country over the
years, Rwandan defense and security forces now provide support to
national development programs. This is not a conventional practice,
but there is no reason it shouldn't be - these national institutions
have to reflect the character and aspirations of the nation."
He said currently the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) runs projects in
agriculture that contribute to food security and it also provides
healthcare during what is known as Army Week activities, which take
place around the time when Rwanda's liberation is celebrated.
Kagame said that last year the RDF treated over 45,000 patients,
including 15,000 genocide survivors. The engineering corps is also
active in building infrastructure and is currently constructing, among
other things, 42,000 homes for vulnerable Rwandans living in high risk
climate zones.
"Although we still have a long way to go and have much more work to
do, Rwandans have seen these innovations work and are encouraged and
empowered to innovate even more," remarked president Kagame.
Kagame said that Rwanda also picks inspirations from other innovations
from across the African content, citing M-pesa, Kenya's mobile
application that allows people to share money using a mobile phone,
and M-Pedigree, an application invented by a young Ghanaian to enable
consumers identify counterfeit drugs.
President Kagame further noted that his country is not sparing any
effort in making its future brighter and this is done through
investments in science and technology which are the core pillars of
innovation.
Kagame mentioned the provision of laptop computers to the primary
school children, the rollout of the fiber optic cable covering 2,300
kilometers across the country and the government partnership with
Korea Telecom (KT) to build a nationwide fourth generation LTE network
in the next three years as some of the investments Rwanda is making
not only to boost innovation but also to be competitive.
"Our goal is to ensure that Rwandans along with other Africans are
equipped with the education, skills, confidence and opportunities to
innovate and be competitive globally," he said. But he admitted that
"these are not easy tasks for any country, least of all one starting
from a very low base like ours. But they are critical to gaining
progress in our countries and our continent."
http://www.independent.co.ug/rwanda-ed/rwanda/8700-we-are-trying-to-make-things-work-
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