Human Rights Watch Report 2008 - Rwanda

I publish the link to Human Rights Watch's 2008 report on Rwanda without comment and emphasising my unquestioning love for the President and all his policies.

Why 'Peak Oil' is not a problem

I would like to thank Jessie for alerting me to an important consequence of high oil prices.

In Kigali a litre of petrol retails at 892 Francs per litre. A bottle of Primus beer retails at 450 Francs for 0.72 litres, making it cost 625 Francs per litre.


A 0.65 litre bottle of Mützig (my preferred Rwandese beer) unfortunately still costs the equivalent of 1077 Francs per litre. Therefore, I expect the fuel price to rise a little further.

Ethiopia

It is with growing disgust that I read articles on recent developments in Ethiopia, whether it is regarding the famine, the war in Somalia or national politics.

A recent article by IPS comments on the recently rigged "elections" in the country. It describes elections dominated by fraud, intimidation and even killings.

Nonetheless the country receives huge amounts of military and financial support from the US in its war in Somalia (source: BBC). The justification is the war against Islamists. The result is that Ethiopia has overthrown the first government in decades that had a chance of stabilising the country. Famine, violence and civil war have followed. The country continues to meddle in a country in which it is hated and held responsible for many wars and deaths.

But the greatest tragedy is that Ethiopia, a regional military and economic power, is once again letting its people starve in a famine that could easily have been averted. And their reponse to the famine: is to ask the West to solve it.

The West finances Ethiopia's wars, support her dictatorship and feeds her people. Alas, its a well known story in Africa. Some things never change.

And because humour is the only way to stay sane in our age, I have added a poll on this issue to the top of the right column of this blog.

Opinion polls in Rwanda

Today, on the Rwandan daily newspaper "New Times" homepage there is a poll on the education sector:

Poll
How do you rate Rwanda’s education sector?
Excellent
Fair
Doing well
Don’t know

We in Rwanda welcome constructive criticism.

Word of the Day: donor state

donor state (n.) – A donor state is one in which development aid plays such an important role in the national economy and state budget, that donors wield significant influence in the nations politics and economy. Symptoms of a donor state include large proportions of foreigners working in and for government ministries, a tendency to promote government programmes over private sector development, a high production of “sector studies”, high inflation and/or high interest rates, an impotent banking sector and a weak private sector. Countries that could currently be described as donor states include Rwanda, Afghanistan, (South) Sudan, Chad and many others. The long-term success of these countries' economies depends on their developing into independant economies and institutions before their dependence becomes institutionalised and permanent. Such quasi-permanent donor states are particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

Word of the Day: poverty tourist

poverty tourist (n.) – Not to be confused with a development tourist (who works in development), a poverty tourist is one who comes on a holiday to a development country to see how terribly poor the poor are, and how wonderfully helpful the development industry is. Some poverty tourism can definitely be classified as a cultural exchange and has merit for both the tourist and the visited community. However, the exposure to poverty and development is generally too short and superficial to communicate the complexities of poverty and development. Poverty tourism is often coupled with donations by the tourist which increase the degree to which he/she identify with the visited development projects. These projects can range from meaningful training and employment generation projects to useless showcase do-good initiatives.

Anyone interested in coming to Rwanda for poverty tourism can look at New Dawn Associates who, despite my reservations, do appear to be doing some good work.

Stephen keeps it real (video)

My friend and former work colleague, Stephen Forder, explaining global warming on the South African youth-oriented show, "Keeping it Real". Nicely done, Stephen.



The original post is on his website, cognition.co.za.

Not a dictatorship

The (pro-government) New Times drew my attention to this recent story of Bonaventure Bizumuremyi. The following is taken from United Press International:

The UMUCO newspaper may be suspended for a year ... In a lengthy article in the current issue [the managing editor] Mr. Bizumuremyi wrote that like the Nazi leader - who was first held in great regard - only to be revered years later, President Kagame was also having his last days as the darling of the west. ... However, according to Prosecution, Mr. Bizumuremyi has no case to answer because the Ethics Committee is yet to hand them the dossier.

The paper has been suspended, despite no charges being pressed by the ethics committee? And this is even the official goverment position.

The article goes on:

Meanwhile, Mr. Bizumuremyi has not been seem since Monday raising speculation that he may be in detention, neither did he attend the Committee summon. His phone is also off and staff at the newspaper says they have not heard from him for days.

Compare that to the Amnesty International Report of 2007 which also mentions Mr Bizumuremyi:

Bonaventure Bizumuremyi, the news editor of Umuco, reportedly had his home in Kigali ransacked in January by four men armed with clubs and knives. Before this attack, Umuco had criticized the ruling party for ineptitude and for allegedly controlling the judiciary.

Development tourism revisited

My short cynical post on "Development Tourism" seems to have stimulated some discussion on other blogs, most notably in a post of a certain Chris Blattman. In particular though, I like the follow-up post in response to the discussion in which Chris says...

"Several people pointed out, rightly I think, that Westerners who spend even two weeks on a development project can give back, just not right away. Later it life, these people may give more time, thought, and money to important causes and decisions as a result. That is excellent, and important.

In that case, however, perhaps we should call these trips what they are: thoughtful and caring, but experiential, not charitable.

I think what makes me uncomfortable is the tendency (for some) to frame or advertise short visits and contributions as a way to give back, or (worse still) to 'save' someone else. ... Saving, I would argue, is an impossible and ultimately harmful aim."

My sentiments entirely. Nicely put.

Word of the Day: donor-dumping

donor-dumping (n.) - This is when a donor or development agency introduces products below the market price in competition with local businesses. Due to their financial resources, donors are able to out-compete local businesses and force them out of the market. Examples of products that are commonly “donor-dumped” on developing markets are: EU/US clothes donations, EU/US food aid, policy consultancy services, financial services and UNIDO infrastructure projects. Donor-dumping is widespread amongst all development aid organisations. In simpler, grass-roots development initiatives, donor-dumping tends to be directly visible in the form of goods or services sold at dumping prices. In more complex development projects, such as grants for infrastructure, donor-dumping can only be seen in the indirect effect on the price of services delivered by the subsidised infrastructure.

Donor-dumping not only leads to competition with local businesses. In cases where subsidies go to social infrastructure such as health centres and hospitals, donor-dumping can also lead to unfair competition with state-run infrastructure. In a heavily donor-funded state, this leads to a parallel state-system run by donor/NGO funding and management structures.

Almost all donor-funded projects have activities which can be classified as donor-dumping. This is a result or poor project design and the Mittelabflussproblem (the use of cash disbursement as the main success indicator for development projects).