Minutes of Development Partners Coordination Group Meeting
Held on 6 May 2004 at MINECOFIN
Subject / Decisions Taken / Responsible / Deadline / Observations andFollow-up
Introduction / Mr. Claver Gatete, SG MINECOFIN, opened the meeting and, as presiding Chair, welcomed participants to MINECOFIN for the fourth DPCG Meeting of the year.
1) Review and matters arising from previous minutes / Matters arising:
The UN Resident Coordinator informed participants that the recommendations resulting from the DPCG Meetings will be put into action as the year moves along and will be reported back to the donors through the DPCG Secretariat.
Cluster Review Meeting by SGs: Mr. Gatete informed that all the SGs for the leading 8 clusters had met in the Prime Minister’s office, together with the Director of Cabinet to discuss the functioning of the clusters, their mandate, etc, and concluded that they needed to come up with a working paper to be presented to cabinet. It was decided that MINECOFIN would come up with the paper, describing the work of clusters in terms of their complementarities to the PRS, and set up a monitoring mechanism to be reported at the Annual Development Partners’ Meetings.
He asked all participants to give their views on how clusters should operate, what they should address and which groups of people should be represented in the cluster. He urged them to send their comments by Wednesday 12 May to the Director of Planning for integration into the report.
A donor meeting will then be held to discuss the approved draft report from Cabinet.
Mr. Gatete suggested that all donors have an ad hoc meeting in two weeks time to discuss how to handle donor coordination especially in light of the World Bank’s suggestion for a Harmonisation and Alignment Workshop in Kigali in July of this year.
It was also suggested that a cluster on macro-economic issues be created. / DPCG Secretariat
MinEconFin
MinEconFin
DPCG Secretariat/SG / Ongoing
Between 17-21 May[u1] / If possible, Lisa and the Secretariat should be involved in the coordination of this from the donors side.
The sequencing and dates are not completely clear on this. Need to clarify the exact dates with Government asap.
Lisa and Doris to set up meeting for donors depending on meeting with Government.
2) Presentation by Aid Coordination Specialist / Lisa Smirl, the new Aid Coordination Specialist, illustrated the results from her initial consultations with donors and government and donors on the functioning of clusters and the DPCG process in a PowerPoint presentation (see attached).
She also presented some concrete recommendations and activities that are achievable in the next 5 months to one year. She stressed the need to put in place larger macro processes such as the finalizing of a national aid coordination and harmonization policy, while building upon the existing cluster system. Immediate actions include the clarification of the cluster system and the establishment of better informational mechanisms such as a website. The medium term benchmark for revisiting the cluster system will be the DPM. Donors and government are encouraged to provide feedback on her presentation. The presented workplan will form the basis of her activities.
The presentation included an indicative budget which will need to be funded if the proposed activities are to succeed. Donors were encouraged to look at ways in which they could contribute including through the assignation of dedicated personnel.
Some participants raised concerns about the need to clearly identify the content for the clusters, their ToRs, what is expected of them and what process has been put in place for their functioning.
A monitoring mechanism should be put in place that will take into account what is proposed and what the process is trying to achieve. It was also noted that both the government and the donors needed to find some incentives for everyone to be involved without necessarily adding an extra burden to everyone’s already busy schedule. Cluster discussions need to be designed in such a way that they fall within the participant’s line of work, therefore, participation and/or contribution would not be seen as a burden.
Participants were reminded that the current cluster system would still go ahead as is, until a new working mechanism is decided upon by Cabinet, on receipt of the draft paper form MINECOFIN.
The SG also informed that his office would put together a document showing last year’s aid coordination missions that were in the country and how time consuming the whole exercise was. Staff output within the Ministry also seemed to deteriorate because the many missions that they were obliged to participate in. He stressed the need for harmonised work between donors to avoid these continued separate, yet related that are both time consuming and costly.
It was also suggested that the government could look at the issue of subsidiarity in order to lessen transaction costs, by introducing a system where the important issues are monitored at Government level while the donors take up the activities at cluster/taskforce level.
The Director of Planning said that there was still need to operationalise the cluster system but so far that had been impossible because there were no clear operational guidelines or structures. / Lisa to consolidate comments and circulated revised documents.
3) PRS Review Update:
- PRS- NEPAD Update / The Director of Planning informed participants that the Government produces annual progress reports on the PRS. The last progress report was published in July 2003, while the 2003 report was due by 31 July.
A workshop was organised on 21 April at the Hotel des Milles Collines to launch the process for the elaboration of the progress report and to put in a place a mechanism for all partners to participate, i.e., government, central government, provincial government, development partners, CSOs and the private sector.
During this workshop it was agreed:
i) That more sectors that need would be reviewed this year, unlike in 2002 when only four sectors were reviewed, this year 8 + 3 sectors will be looked at. (The number may be reduced if HIV/AIDS is included under the health cluster)
ii) That each sector would have government and donor facilitators. So far, however, two donors had not yet been identified for the health and Human resource and capacity building sectors. The Government was still waiting for confirmation from either USAID or Belgium on whether they would facilitate the health sector, while Sida, which had been nominated to lead the HR sector, lacked the capacity. The Government requested either the World Bank or UNDP to lead this sector and was still waiting for confirmation from either of them.
iii) On drafting teams for each sector with government, development partners, CSOs, Private sector. Facilitators will meet to identify drafting teams.
iv) On a calendar for all activities leading to the final publication of progress report.
v) That the cluster system would be used as a forum for consultation.
Follow-up actions
i) A technical workshop is scheduled for the 10-11 May at the School of Finance and Banking in Kigali and the objectives of this meeting are to: elaborate the ToRs for the drafting teams, set up the drafting teams, agree on the methodology for work, brainstorming on the work structure for the report and drawing up a calendar of activities leading up to the publication of the report.
The Director of Planning invited all donors to participate in this workshop.
PRS-NEPAD Interface: The SG stated that the PRS is the main framework for planning in the country, therefore any other framework and all interventions should be aligned within the PRS objective.
He informed that at the Africa Partnership Forum in Maputo last month, the issue of integration of NEPAD and MDGs into the country PRS was discussed. He stressed that NEPAD’s objectives fit within the Vision 2020 and can clearly be incorporated into the PRS.
He also informed that a National Commission would be set up to review the country’s final preparedness report. / Add PRS Review schedule to online calendar
5) Agreement on the way forward for Project support harmonisation / The UN Resident Coordinator informed that there was need for project support donors to sit together to harmonise and align their activities, especially the UN Agencies, USAID, Belgium Japan and all the other project support donors.
It was agreed that UNDP would convene this meeting as soon as possible. / DPCG Secretariat / A.S.A.P / Donor meeting needs to be convened in the next two to three weeks.
6) NEPAD Update / The SG briefed participants about the NEPAD Workshop in Maputo, which was attended by the personal representatives of the Heads of State and Governments of the G8 and other partners supporting Africa, such as the World Bank, EU, IMF, UK, USA and others. The issues discussed at the meeting were Education, HIV/AIDS, peace and security, economic growth and wealth indicators. (See Report attached).
He also informed that three additional countries have now joined the APRF, Angola, Egypt and Benin, bringing the total to 19 countries.
In Nairobi, the Heads of State and Governments met and approved programmes for the region. Most regional bodies such as IGAD, COMESA, EAC were represented, as well as regional organisations like the ECA, ADB, SADB and the South African NEPAD Secretariat.
At this meeting, projects within the four areas were identified and proposals will be presented on 23 May in Maputo for approval.
The SG reminded participants that after the NEPAD summit in Kigali, a fund was set up to assist the Secretariat and NEPAD’s programmes by UNDP and was ready to receive resources from all donors.
He also informed that the next Africa partnership Forum will take place in Washington DC in the 3rd or 4th week of October this year to discuss issues of peace and security, food security, trade and market access and capacity building. / Dates to be added to online calendar.
SG has been contacted for the report.
6) Notification on Development Partners Meeting / The SG informed that he would communicate the date for the DPM at as soon as possible.
7) AOB / The Resident Coordinator reminded all participants about the budget that was circulated earlier on regarding the coordination secretariat that was to be set up to help on donor/government coordination. He requested everyone to support his office in identifying resources for this secretariat.
Mr. Hara, JICA representative, informed that a meeting would be held the following week on bilateral policy discussion between Japan and Rwanda.
The SG of MIFOTRA informed that progress had been made on the public sector reform report, which would soon be presented to Cabinet for approval.
***The meeting was called to an end at 12.30pm***
No.
/NAME
/ TITLE / ORGANISATION / TELEPHONE / EMAIL1 / Sandra Diesel / Programme Officer / Swedish Embassy/Sida / 08305064 /
2 / Douziech Didier / Deputy Director / Swiss Cooperation / 08301998 /
3 / H.M. Angenent / Netherlands Embassy /
4 / Dirk Brems / Belgian Embassy /
5 / Christian Pouyez / Director, UAP / Canadian Cooperation / 08305074 /
6 / Tom Leeming / Economist / EC / 08305892 /
7 / Ernest Rwamucyo / Director / SPPMD/MINECOFIN / 08303227 /
8 / Andrew Karas / Agriculture & Rural Enterprise Devt Team / USAID / 08302128 /
9 / Harriet Wanjohi / DFID /
10 / Angelique Bitahaninkindi / EC /
11 / Joan LaRosa / Deputy Director / USAID / 08303036 /
12 / Deputy Programme Officer / USAID / 08305092 /
13 / Jean Kanyamuhanda / Director, Financial Coordination & Res. mobilization / MINECOFIN / 08303214 /
14 / Komi Gbeblewoo / RR / FAO / 08305747 /
15 / Wolf Grundies / DCM / German Embassy / 08302404 /
16 / Akira Hara / JICA /
17 / Lisa Smirl / Aid Coordination Specialist / UNDP / 08778203 /
18 / Emile Fundira / Head of Financing, Agreement & Res. Mobilisation Coord. Service / MINECOFIN / 08519720 /
19 / Mbaye Diouf / Director / UNECA / 586548 /
20 / Macharia Kamau / RR, RC / UNDP/UN / 08302570 /
21 / Bintou Keita / RR / UNICEF / 08302716 /
22 / Oumar Sako / DRR a.i. / UNDP / 08301638 /
23 / Mamadou Malifa Baldé / WR a.i / WHO / 08303821 /
24 / George Katureebe / Director General / CEPEX /
25 / Claver Gatete / SG / MINECOFIN / 575778 /
26 / Francis Gatare / National Economist / UNDP / 08301638 /
27 / Theophile Ruberangeyo / Director of Planning / MININFRA /
28 / Josephine Bourne / DFID /
29 / Colin Kirk / Head of office / DFID /
30 / Alessandro Villa / Counsellor / EC / 575586 /
31 / Abdikarim Farah / Representative / IMF / 08302701 /
Attendance List: Development Partners Coordination Group Meeting 6/05/04, UNDP
33 / Dirk Jena / RR / UNFPA / 583003 /
34 / Henri Ananias / MINALOC /
35 / Deogène Ndazigaruye / Deputy Program Specialist / USAID / 08303029
1
[u1]1This clashes with the Education Sector Joint Review