FCDO Development Director Series: Rwanda

Join us as we host Anna Wilson, the Development Director in Rwanda for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) who will present FCDO’s development strategy, programming and pipeline of opportunities in Rwanda.

Rwanda has achieved significant progress since the devastating genocide of 1994 but remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with 2.5 million people living in extreme poverty. Reliance on low-income agriculture and agricultural wage labour means that livelihoods are fragile, and COVID-19 threatened to destabilise a decade-long of sustained steady economic growth. Food prices are rising, inflation is currently 21% and government debt has increased.

The UK has shifted its development approach in Rwanda from large-scale financial aid and service delivery to targeted technical assistance, policy influencing and enhanced UK-Rwanda partnerships. The key priority for FCDO is supporting Rwanda, a key focus country, in its ambitious goals of girls’ education and women’s empowerment, which will be self-financed by cleaner, greener, inclusive growth and underpinned by free and democratic institutions.

Although the UK has delivered impressive results with Rwanda, particularly in the education sector, 2023 will be the last year that it supports country-wide service provision. From 2024, development assistance (£14.4 million in 2023) will focus on girls’ education in the lowest performing schools, specifically addressing the cultural and policy changes required to ensure that girls stay in school and learn, as well as supporting inclusive education for children with disabilities.

Anna Wilson will offer us updates on the current context on the ground as well as insights into FCDO’s development strategy in the country. Anna is Development Director at British High Commission in Kigali providing oversight and assurance for UK’s development partnership with Rwanda and Burundi. Prior to this, Anna was Deputy Development Director in Sudan leading on the UK’s humanitarian assistance. From 2015 to 2018 Anna worked as Head of UK’s Humanitarian Response Group responsible for ensuring a fast, effective response to global humanitarian emergencies including hurricanes in the Caribbean and South Pacific as well as the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

Anna joined the Department for International Development (DFID) in 2003 and has worked on humanitarian and development programmes in Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Syria as well as on policy issues including debt relief, international financial institutions and private sector development.

Agenda:

9:00 – 10.30

Introductions from the chair: 10 min

Presentation from Anna Wilson, FCDO Development Director in Rwanda: 20 min

Q&A: 30 min