Since 2004, the U.S. government has supported the global response to HIV/AIDS through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The Republic of Rwanda, a PEPFAR partner country since ...the initiative began, has made gains in its HIV response, including increased access to and coverage of antiretroviral therapy and decreased HIV prevalence. However, a persistent shortage in human resources for health (HRH) affects the health of people living with HIV and the entire Rwandan population.
Recognizing HRH capabilities as a foundational challenge for the health system and the response to HIV, the Government of Rwanda worked with PEPFAR and other partners to develop a program to strengthen institutional capacity in health professional education and thereby increase the production of high-quality health workers. The Program was fully managed by the Government of Rwanda and was designed to run from 2011 through 2019. PEPFAR initiated funding in 2012. In 2015, PEPFAR adopted a new strategy focused on high-burden geographic areas and key populations, resulting in a reconfiguration of its HIV portfolio in Rwanda and a decision to cease funding the Program, which was determined no longer core to its programming strategy. The last disbursement for the Program from PEPFAR was in 2017.
Evaluation of PEPFAR's Contribution (2012-2017) to Rwanda's Human Resources for Health Program describes PEPFAR-supported HRH activities in Rwanda in relation to programmatic priorities, outputs, and outcomes and examines, to the extent feasible, the impact on HRH and HIV-related outcomes. The HRH Program more than tripled the country's physician specialist workforce and produced major increases in the numbers and qualifications of nurses and midwives. Partnerships between U.S. institutions and the University of Rwanda introduced new programs, upgraded curricula, and improved the quality of teaching and training for health professionals. Growing the number, skills, and competencies of health workers contributed to direct and indirect improvements in the quality of HIV care. Based on the successes and challenges of the HRH program, the report recommends that future investments in health professional education be designed within a more comprehensive approach to human resources for health and institutional capacity building, which would strengthen the health system to meet both HIV-specific and more general health needs. The recommendations offer an aspirational framework to reimagine how partnerships are formed, how investments are made, and how the effects of those investments are documented.
Members of Parliament in the UK will on 16 and 17 January 2024 debate the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which ‘gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of ...Rwanda is a safe country’ for asylum-seekers. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in November 2023 that Rwanda was manifestly not safe as asylum seekers sent to the country would face a real risk of ill-treatment due to insufficient guarantees against refoulement. The Bill thus aims to use law to determine a factual situation for as long as the law is in force. This blog discusses the risks inherent in creating such a ‘legal fiction’ and how the Bill could be revised to mitigate this risk, before assessing the chances of it becoming law in the currently turbulent political context.
Although Rwanda is among the most Christian countries in Africa, in the 1994 genocide, church buildings became the primary killing grounds. To explain why so many Christians participated in the ...violence, this book looks at the history of Christian engagement in Rwanda and then turns to a rich body of original national- and local-level research to argue that Rwanda's churches have consistently allied themselves with the state and played ethnic politics. Comparing two local Presbyterian parishes in Kibuye before the genocide demonstrates that progressive forces were seeking to democratize the churches. Just as Hutu politicians used the genocide of Tutsi to assert political power and crush democratic reform, church leaders supported the genocide to secure their own power. The fact that Christianity inspired some Rwandans to oppose the genocide demonstrates that opposition by the churches was possible and might have hindered the violence.
This book explores key innovations in Rwandan law, exploring how the country has tried to combine the homegrown legal system with the civil law and common law legal systems to create a new hybrid ...legal system.
The author explores the history of Rwandan law through the pre-colonial, to the colonial and post-independence periods, and examines the homegrown legal and justice approaches, such as Gacaca, Abunzi, and Imihigo, introduced to deal with legal problems that could not be dealt with using the western legal system in post-genocide Rwanda. The book highlights the innovative Rwandan approach to incorporating international law in the domestic legal system; it also covers the evolution of Rwandan constitutional law and constitutionalism since independence, and the development of family law from a legal system that oppressed women to one that promotes the rights of girls and women. Finally, the book explores the combination of common law and civil law systems in the development of the new Rwandan criminal law and in the transformation of the organization, jurisdiction, and functioning of Rwandan courts.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of African law, international law, and the legal system in Rwanda.
This study illustrates how entrepreneurship may catalyze prosperity as well as peace in entrenched poverty–conflict zones. We bring to life a conceptualization of transformative entrepreneuring by ...assessing interrelationships between poverty and conflict indicators from the perspective of rural dwellers in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sector. Our findings suggest that individuals' perceptions of poverty alleviation and conflict reduction are sequentially linked, notably via increased quality of life. This enables us to advance theory on entrepreneuring by unpacking the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial processes may transform the lives of such ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurs in settings where economic and social value creation are desperately needed.
•This paper conceptualizes transformative entrepreneuring in poverty–conflict zones.•We examine the relationship between poverty and conflict in Rwanda's coffee sector.•Our focus is on ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurial actors involved in entrepreneuring.•Poverty and conflict reductions are interlinked, notably via increased life quality.•The study illustrates how entrepreneuring may catalyze prosperity as well as peace.
This book is a guide to the law that applies in the three international criminal tribunals, for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, set up by the UN during the period 1993 to 2002 to deal ...with atrocities and human rights abuses committed during conflict in those countries. Building on the work of an earlier generation of war crimes courts, these tribunals have developed a sophisticated body of law concerning the elements of the three international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes), and forms of participation in such crimes, as well as other general principles of international criminal law, procedural matters and sentencing. The legacy of the tribunals will be indispensable as international law moves into a more advanced stage, with the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Their judicial decisions are examined here, as well as the drafting history of their statutes and other contemporary sources.
PROPAGANDA AND CONFLICT Yanagizawa-Drott, David
The Quarterly journal of economics,
11/2014, Letnik:
129, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article investigates the role of mass media in times of conflict and state-sponsored mass violence against civilians. We use a unique village-level data set from the Rwandan genocide to estimate ...the impact of a popular radio station that encouraged violence against the Tutsi minority population. The results show that the broadcasts had a significant effect on participation in killings by both militia groups and ordinary civilians. An estimated 51,000 perpetrators, or approximately 10% of the overall violence, can be attributed to the station. The broadcasts increased militia violence not only directly by influencing behavior in villages with radio reception but also indirectly by increasing participation in neighboring villages. In fact, spillovers are estimated to have caused more militia violence than the direct effects. Thus, the article provides evidence that mass media can affect participation in violence directly due to exposure and indirectly due to social interactions.
CONTEXT Rwanda has enjoyed strong economic performance over the last decade, supported by significant external aid and close engagement with the Fund, including under a PSI since 2010. The ...authorities have requested a new three-year PSI in support of their new poverty reduction strategy (EDPRS 2). KEY CHALLENGES Rwanda faces two main economic challenges: In the near term, to maintain macroeconomic stability under uncertain prospects for donor aid and the global environment. Over the medium term, to sustain strong and inclusive growth and poverty reduction while gradually reducing reliance on aid. MAIN POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Continue to focus on inclusive growth and policies, while aligning spending priorities with available financing. Strengthen domestic resource mobilization by broadening the tax base, introducing comprehensive tax regimes for agriculture and mining, and strengthening property taxation, and further enhancing revenue administration. Further improve public financial management through strengthened information management systems and capacity building. Modernize the monetary policy framework by injecting greater flexibility and improving institutional arrangements. Ensure exchange rate flexibility to preserve reserve buffers and enhance competitiveness. Further develop financial markets and expand access to financial services.
Written by people selected for their personalized knowledge of the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda Revisited: Genocide, Civil War, and the Transformation of International Law provides a unique level of ...insight, detail and first-hand knowledge about the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath.
Abstract
How does competition affect market outcomes when formal contracts are not enforceable and parties resort to relational contracts? Difficulties with measuring relational contracts and dealing ...with the endogeneity of competition have frustrated attempts to answer this question. We make progress by studying relational contracts between upstream farmers and downstream mills in Rwanda’s coffee industry. First, we identify salient dimensions of their relational contracts and measure them through an original survey of mills and farmers. Second, we take advantage of an engineering model for the optimal placement of mills to construct an instrument that isolates geographically determined variation in competition. Conditional on the suitability for mills’ placement in the catchment area, we find that mills surrounded by more suitable areas (i) face more competition from other mills, (ii) use fewer relational contracts with farmers, and (iii) exhibit worse performance. An additional competing mill also (iv) reduces the aggregate quantity of coffee supplied to mills by farmers and (v) makes farmers worse off. Competition hampers relational contracts directly by increasing farmers’ temptation to default on the relational contract and indirectly by reducing mills’ profits.
PDF
