Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While I said in my reply that we do not have a partnership with Rwanda directly, we do have partnerships with various organisations engaged in Rwanda, particularly NGOs such as Concern and Trócaire and we will continue to assist them with funds. Likewise, we have a partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and we are engaged with it in various agricultural projects in several African countries, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, and to a degree in Nigeria.

A new programme will start shortly which will involve all Departments. We are seeking to engage with the Departments to see what added value each can bring. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine can bring a lot because so many Africans live in a rural and agricultural environment. The Departments of Health, Education and Skills, Justice and Equality, also have something to add. We can consider something involving cattle and seed in agricultural promotion. A decade ago we might have considered Rwanda because it was in a post-conflict situation. Our new policy, "One World, One Future" focuses on fragile post-conflict states. Rwanda has been doing very well. We have moved into Sierra Leone where there has been recent conflict, and its neighbour Liberia. They have had conflict for the past ten or 12 years. We have moved out of Lesotho which was our longest-standing partner country, at 40 years, and Timor Leste, which had conflict. We are beginning to move to a more cutting edge engagement and seeking to build up sustainable development in these countries. While we would love to be in Rwanda, wonderful progress has been made there over the past few years, despite the terrible genocide that took place.