Louis Michel, a former Foreign Minister of Belgium and current member of the European Parliament, argues the following on EurActiv:
Few countries have had as much success in delivering the MDGs than Rwanda, a country I have visited many times. These achievements stem from a determination to use them to develop an ambitious but concrete programme rooted in the principle of shared responsibility with the international community and within Rwandan society itself.
It is this approach that has enabled Rwanda to rebuild a sovereign state — without which development cannot take place — and a transformed economy at the service of its citizens. The results are impressive. Rwanda will be one of the very few countries in Africa that can claim to have reached almost all the MDGs by 2015.
In less than ten years, a million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. Annual economic growth has been averaged at 8%. More than 95% of children now have access to a full cycle of primary education. Infant mortality is down 61%, while three quarters of the population have access to drinking water. It is a society, too, where nearly 50% of women have access to contraception and women, following the recent election, make up 64% of MPs, the highest proportion in the world.
