Uganda, Rwanda deny U.N. accusations of backing DRC rebels

Uganda and Rwanda angrily rejected accusations of backing rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a United Nations report tying them to the insurgents was leaked to reporters this week.

The confidential U.N. report, leaked to Reuters on Tuesday, reportedly asserted that the Rwandan defense minister was commanding the rebellion and that Rwanda and Uganda have funneled weapons and troops to the rebels.

Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo rejected the accusations and claimed the expert panel had been “hijacked” by the political biases of its coordinator, the Rwanda News Agency reported. Rwandan officials have accused the coordinator of being an apologist for the forces behind its genocide.

Uganda also denied the accusations.

"It's hogwash, it's a mere rumor that's being taken as a report,” Ugandan military spokesman Felix Kulaigye told Radio France Internationale.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been roiled by the rebellion, which includes soldiers who mutinied with a Congolese army general wanted by the International Criminal Court. The soldiers had been brought into the army as part of an earlier peace deal.

Suspicions that other countries are involved in the conflict have simmered since violence erupted this year. Human Rights Watch also has accused Rwanda of aiding the rebels, saying officials had armed and backed the mutiny. Western countries cut their aid to Rwanda this year over the allegations.

Despite the furor over the allegations, Rwanda won a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Temporary members of the group do not have the power to veto action, as do permanent members France, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia, but sitting on the powerful body is still a coveted position.

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Photo: Henry Okello Oryem, the Ugandan minister for foreign affairs, speaks to members of the media in Kampala on Wednesday. Credit: Phil Moore / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

While 'Obamacare' under fire, universal care catches on globally

Even as the Obama administration comes under scrutiny for overhauling healthcare and requiring all citizens to have insurance in the United States, the idea of universal healthcare is taking off elsewhere around the globe, according to a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Unlike the United States, emerging economies are not buying the argument that healthcare is largely the responsibility of individuals and businesses, with a public provision relegated to the elderly, veterans and the indigent,” writes Yanzhong Huang, its senior fellow for global health.

Government plans that aim to ensure universal health coverage have been launched everywhere from Kyrgyzstan to India to Brazil. Though the programs differ from country to country, they share the idea of splitting the costs of care broadly so that a sudden illness doesn’t plunge someone into poverty.

As of three years ago, nearly 50 countries had achieved almost universal health coverage, International Labor Organization data show. China had 95% of its citizens covered by the end of last year, the official New China News Agency reported last month. If more countries follow the lead of countries such as China, India and Rwanda, the Council on Foreign Relations report argues, most people in the world could have affordable healthcare in a decade.

Expanding health coverage has created some striking success stories elsewhere in the world: Six years after Thailand started its program, both rich and poor people ended up spending half as much on unexpected health catastrophes as they had previously, according to the report.

Yet “health coverage is not a guarantee of lower out-of-pocket costs or reduced financial hardship,” the report finds.   In the Philippines, for instance, private hospitals sometimes charged higher prices to treat people using government insurance, hiking their out-of-pocket costs to generate the same revenue.

Other effects have been mixed worldwide. Universal health coverage led to dramatic increases in the number of times that people visited the hospital in Rwanda and Taiwan, but not in the Chinese countryside, where the government created a rural health coverage program.

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Photo: In the northern Indian city of Jammu, residents register this month for the national health insurance program for people living below the poverty line. Credit: Jaipal Singh / European Pressphoto Agency

How did Rwanda cut poverty so much?

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

The small African nation of Rwanda recently announced that it had cut poverty by 12% in six years, from 57% of its population to 45%. That equals roughly a million Rwandans emerging from poverty -- one of the most stunning drops in the world.

It's a remarkable achievement for Rwanda, which has emerged from civil war and a bloody ethnic genocide in the 1990s. How did it happen? The Times quizzed Paul Collier, director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, about the  numbers.

Are there any doubts that the drop is real?

No doubts; I know the economics professor who did the data analysis, and he is highly experienced and painstaking, so it is genuine.

How did Rwanda cut its poverty so much?

There were one or two helpful events, notably the rise in world coffee prices, which pumped money into the rural economy, but, of course, overall the global economy since 2005 has not provided an easy environment for success. Hence, most of the achievement is likely due to domestic policies.

Rwanda is the nearest that Africa gets to an East Asian-style “developmental state,” where the government gets serious about trying to grow the economy and where the president runs a tight ship within government built on performance rather than patronage.

There were strong supporting policies for the rural poor -- the “one cow” program [that distributed cows to poor households free of charge], which spread assets, and the improvements in health programs.

Alongside this, the economy was well managed, with inflation kept low, and the business environment improved, both of which helped the main city, Kigali, to grow. Growth in Kigali then spread benefits to rural areas -- the most successful rural districts were those closest to Kigali.

When you say well managed, what do you mean? What choices did the government make that were signs of good management?

Basically, [President Paul] Kagame built a culture of performance at the top of the civil service. Ministers were well paid, but set targets. If they missed the targets there were consequences. Each year, the government holds a whole-of-government retreat where these performances are reviewed: good performance rewarded, and poor performers required to explain themselves.

An example is the strategy to improve Rwanda's rating on the World Bank's “Doing Business” annual rating, where over the course of six years the country moved from around 140th to 60th in the world rankings. Each component of the ratings was assigned each year to an appropriate minister. So over time, a cadre of government officials has been built up who believe in their ability not just to strategize but to get things done.

What changes can you see now in Rwanda?

Some changes are obvious to the eye -- houses that now have tin roofs instead of thatch. Thatch may look prettier, but the world over, a decent roof is one of the first changes people make when they start the ascent out of poverty. Some of the changes are psychological -- a sense that things really can improve, and a sense that individual families can do something about their circumstances.

What can other countries learn from Rwanda -- or is its story so unique that it can't be copied?

They can learn a lot. If Rwanda can do this well, with all its disadvantages -- landlocked, legacy of conflict, no natural resources -- other African countries should be able to do even better.

Do you think Rwanda can continue to reduce poverty at the same rate in the coming years?

The government has now set its sights on getting the country to middle-income levels. This will require a change in the growth strategy. So far, growth has come primarily from doing better the things that Rwanda is doing already. To reach middle income, new activities will need to be introduced and the economy diversified. Rwanda needs pioneer investors and aid to support them with public infrastructure; I hope that it gets them. If it does, then, yes, poverty can continue to fall fast.

[For the Record, 7:59 a.m., Feb. 16: In an earlier version of the post, the Rwandan capital of Kigali was incorrectly spelled as Kigale.”]

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Photo: A view of a village near Murambi Technical School in Rwanda in 2004. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times