[{"bbox": [72, 108, 301, 137], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2. RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [116, 171, 249, 197], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 2.1. Context"}, {"bbox": [83, 227, 1146, 571], "category": "Text", "text": "Over the past two decades, Rwanda has managed to put in place a well-articulated and effectively implemented policy framework to address its development challenges which are mainly dominated by persistent poverty (recently exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis) among the vulnerable population living mostly in rural areas.. Rwanda's Vision 2050, which identifies the country's overarching objectives to transform its economy and modernise the lives of Rwandans, with the aim to reach upper-middle income status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050. The Vision 2050 has taken into consideration the global and regional development agendas, to ensure harmonisation of targets and indicators. Those include: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), African Union (AU) Agenda 2063, East African Community (EAC) Vision 2050, and the Paris Agreement on climate change among other instruments. Vision 2050 is anchored on five pillars: i) Human Development, ii) Competitiveness and Integration, iii) Agriculture for wealth creation, iv) Urbanisation and Agglomeration and v) Accountable and Capable State Institutions. The first years of Vision 2050, up to 2024, are operationalised through Rwanda's 7-year plan: The National Strategy for Transformation (NST1), which articulates policy priorities under three key areas: social transformation, economic transformation and transformational governance."}, {"bbox": [83, 582, 1146, 902], "category": "Text", "text": "Although its overall score is ranked² at 130 out of 193 United Nations (UN) Member states, Rwanda has made a remarkable progress towards the achievement of sustainable goals over the last years. The Rwandan economy was performing well before the COVID-19 crisis, in 2019 the economy grew by 9.4 %, the highest growth rate above Rwanda's average growth of the last decade. In response to the pandemic which is severely affecting the economy, the Government of Rwanda has put in place an Economic Recovery Plan (ERP) made up of two pillars. The first is an economic pillar aimed at ensuring the survival of affected businesses and safeguarding jobs. The second pillar relates to expanding social protection to vulnerable groups. The latter has been the focus of EU support to the COVID response by Government and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). The ERP shows the government's determination to ensure that the objectives of the Vision 2050 and the NST1 are back on track as soon as possible. However, this response to the COVID-19 crisis, has led to an increase in spending and a rise in public debt, which will require restriction of fiscal policy and consolidation of public finances in the medium-term and risks undermining Rwanda's development ambitions."}, {"bbox": [83, 914, 1146, 1152], "category": "Text", "text": "Notwithstanding, the focus of the Government on stimulating and transforming its economy by developing the services sector and turning the country into a regional trade, logistics, and conference hubs, remain unchanged. Improving quality of education, creating jobs and business growth through entrepreneurship support and a more enabling business environment, increasing rural incomes through agricultural value chains, ensuring good governance and attracting private sector investment, in particular in the bio-medical sector as a potential driver of knowledge-based jobs and economic dynamism, remain on top of government agenda. Climate change and weather-related disasters continue to impact vulnerable populations and the country's economy and thus the promotion of sustainable management of the environment and natural resources remains key to support Rwanda's transition to a green economy and deliver on its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)."}, {"bbox": [83, 1164, 1146, 1245], "category": "Text", "text": "Rwanda's low levels of human capital are one of the most critical obstacles to the country realising its developmental aspirations. The Government economic development strategy is largely aimed at diversifying the economy towards high productivity knowledge-based sectors, which requires a well-educated and highly skilled labour force."}, {"bbox": [83, 1257, 1146, 1390], "category": "Text", "text": "Over the last quarter century, Rwanda has made great strides in building a well-functioning system for basic education, with clear gains in particular in expanding access to primary education with a net enrolment rate of 98% and gender parity. However, serious concerns remain regarding quality, efficiency and learning outcomes. On its hand, enrolment rates in Technical Educational and Vocational Training (TVET) are very high (15 %, 4th highest in continental Africa) but TVET structures remain ill equipped and unable to deliver training of adequate quality."}, {"bbox": [83, 1402, 1146, 1587], "category": "Text", "text": "On the international arena, Rwanda has also remained a strategic partner of the EU on the continent while remaining an influential continental player in various subjects. Rwanda is a major peacekeeping troop contributor on the continent, and United Nations officials as well as development partners appreciate its military professional and commitment to civilian protections. Its offer to host the Emergency Transit Mechanism for Libyan refugees, has also demonstrated strong commitment to contribute to solving international crisis, in particular in Africa, through multilateral cooperation. Rwanda's interest in furthering regional integration, with strong ambitions for advanced integration in the EAC, as well as Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and Common Market"}, {"bbox": [72, 1638, 493, 1664], "category": "Footnote", "text": "² https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings."}, {"bbox": [1051, 1664, 1158, 1687], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 4 of 17"}]