Context
Guided by its "Vision 2020" policy, Rwanda aspires to become a middle-income country by the year 2020, with less than 30% of the population classified as ‘poor’. The Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy 2013 -2018 is designed to produce the high rates of economic growth necessary to achieve this aim.
A strategy for reforming the management of public finances (including macroeconomic aspects) initiated in 2008 has been updated as a basis for the development strategy. However, the planning is not yet sufficiently founded on macroeconomic analysis, and structures and processes for using new and innovative sources of financing (public private partnerships, capital market instruments) must be created.
Objectives
Economic planning is increasingly based on well-founded macroeconomic analysis. Processes exist for using new and innovative financing sources.
Approach
While macroeconomic stability is a prerequisite for dynamic and widespread growth, financing and steering public and private investments and designing a sustainable public fiscal policy are also important instruments for poverty reduction, concerning both the quality of macroeconomic analysis and its translation into MINECOFIN policies. The programme therefore consists of two intervention areas: macroeconomic management, and investment planning and financing.
The programme operates across the country, supporting government institutions with both political and technical-, organisational-, and process-related advice. At the partners’ request, a considerable part of the program also consists of task-oriented on-the-job trainings.
While MINECOFIN is the main recipient of the services, other partners include the Rwandan central bank, the National Institute of Statistics (NISR), the National Investment Committee (NIC), and various sector ministries.
The programme uses several measures to increase the analytical capacity of Rwandan economic institutions and their staff, with the aim of increasing the quality of reporting and macroeconomic planning. A number of people have been trained in analysis and programming with the "Marumo" simulation model, which the World Bank introduced to Rwanda.
The Economic Policy Research Network (EPRN), whose members come from different institutions across the country, is another important partner. With the programme’s support, EPRN organised the first scientific conference on economic topics in Rwanda. The country’s most important institutions were present during the day-long conference in December 2014. The governor of the Rwandan central bank was the patron of the conference and delivered the keynote speech. The documents and the subsequent discussions on policy recommendations reflected very high standards, and selected articles will be published in 2015 in international professional journals.