Rwanda

Since 2002, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) has received separate project support from a number of donors, including UNDP, the African Development Bank, the European Commission and Belgian Cooperation. MINECOFIN is the lead ministry in a number of areas critical to implementation of national development programs, and donor engagement in Rwanda. These include among others, macroeconomic policy, public financial management and strategic planning around implementation of the PRSP.

The various projects often combined technical assistance, salary enhancements, and support for running costs, equipment and ad hoc studies. Hence, the projects were not adequately integrated with overall government structures, which contributed to creating distortions and resulted in capacity substitution rather than capacity building. In addition, it was perceived (a) that the projects were insufficiently aligned with government priorities, (b) lacked coherence and overall strategic guidance and (c) resulted in inefficiencies and duplications.
In order to address these issues, it was decided that the Ministry would produce a Strategic Plan including a 3-year rolling strategic action plan, linked to the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for its implementation. The strategic plan would contain medium term strategic development objectives as well as a clear capacity building strategy for the ministry, to be integrated with the overall public sector reform of the government and the World Bank's capacity building initiative to be carried out by HIDA.

The project has already allowed UNDP to increase its influence in the policy dialogue with government and donors. One of the elements of the project was the support to the PRSP process. As a privileged partner of the ministry, UNDP was able to convey the importance of aligning the next PRS with MDGs. This has, for the first time, given UNDP a key position in the PRS process.