31 07 13 New Times (Rwanda) – Andrew Mitchell addresses senators on donor perception

Mitchell was addressing Rwandan senators and other
officials at the opening of a three-day conference dubbed, “Development
Partnership–A Donor View”, in Kigali yesterday.

The former UK’s
Secretary of State for International Development said development cannot take
place unless there is conflict resolution, adding that it was one of the main
reasons he came to Rwanda to learn how the country managed to recover from the
dark past and progress economically.

“We understand today that because
of modern communications, our generations, working together, have a chance to
make real progress on development and tackle the great variations of
opportunities and wealth in our world as never before,” Mitchell
said.

“If you look at Rwanda in the last five years, a million people
have been lifted out of poverty which is a remarkable achievement. Now the
international community working together has the power to do that in many parts
of the world because we know and we agree on what works and what doesn’t work,”
the UK Tory added.

Changing scope

Unlike today
where aid is more focused on development, he added, previously, the donor
community only released the funds on the basis of geo-politics where donors
would dish out funds just to keep recipient countries in their ‘camp’.

Such camps, Mitchell said, included one of the Soviet Union, which would
give funds to countries such as Angola and Tanzania, and on the other hand,
there was Western-oriented camp.

“Those days have gone; it’s our
generation now that has the centre ground. We can now do things that we could
never do before,” he said.

Mitchell also told the senators that in the
end, people are able to lift themselves out of poverty through economic
development and workings of the private enterprises.

This, he said, is
another perspective from the donors’ view.
“The other perspective is that
the donor should be able to explain to the taxpayers what the money they are
spending is achieving and that, of course, is an incredibly important aspect,”
Mitchell said.

“In Britain, we have managed to hit our central target of
0.7 per cent aid target of gross national income. The taxpayer has to be
persuaded that such money is justified,” he added.

According to
Mitchell, aid matters to Britain and it is not just a handout to the
beneficiaries.

“We in the UK benefit from it as well. That argument
relates to tackling conflicts and creating wealth and economic development
because economic development is for our benefit as well as your development.
Countries that increase their degree of trading they trade with people and they
trade with us. This is why we equally stand to benefit which makes us more
prosperous and also tackling conflict makes us safer,” said Mitchell.

Senator Tito Rutaremara said the philosophy of aid is changing with
time.

Before 1960s, Tito said, the philosophy of aid was to give the
poor people Western civilisation and help people suffering and from dying of
hunger.

“But now it’s good that the philosophy has changed to
development. If we are pro-development, we will be a consuming market but our
concern is, do all donors understand it this way, do they know that it’s not
help for now but for the future so that the market is expanded? And why is aid
used as a political pressure tool?” Rutaremara asked Mitchell.

In his
response, Mitchell said he believes all donors are moving toward the same
understanding about aid.