Working Papers

In 2005-2006 Rwanda benefitted from massive external debt cancellation by the international community under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). As a result, the country’s public debt sustainability was effectively restored and the Rwandan government was given a clean slate, on which a new, hopefully more successful debt policy could be written. This paper reviews how Rwandan public debt has evolved in the aftermath of debt relief and which priorities were put forward in the debt policy of the Rwandan government. (download, Rwandan press coverage) 

D. Cassimon

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state of climate finance readiness in the Republic of Rwanda so to identify key opportunities for strengthening the country’s performance in accessing and delivering increasingly larger amounts of climate finance from international public and private sources. The report is divided into three parts respectively discussing: 1) a four-pillar framework with indicators for assessing climate finance readiness at the national level 2) an analysis of Rwanda’s climate finance strategies, policies, institutions, and recent experience in accessing and delivering climate funds and 3) key findings and recommendations for each modality of the climate finance readiness framework. (download)

A. Marx

This research paper is the first comprehensive effort to get a full overview of public climate finance in Belgium. Up to now, reports to international institutions such as UNFCCC have been incomplete, because not all funding bodies’ and agencies’ flows were included. For the weighting of the climate relevance, two methodologies are used side-by-side: the 0-40-100 used by most countries and the EU, and the ‘DGD-method’ which is a method sui generis developed by the Belgian federal development administration. All the partners in the Belgian public climate finance landscape and their activities are first explained, and afterwards an overview is provided of the climate flows for the years 2013 and 2014. Except for two public organisations, the figures for all Belgian stakeholders could be retrieved. This paper is an important step forward towards full coverage for Belgian public climate finance reporting efforts in the near future. (download)

K. Bachus

The business sector in Burundi is dominated by small firms, with a median firm size of seven permanent workers. This has implications for firm resilience, access to resources, productivity and welfare. Large firms are more resilient, more productive, offer higher wages and other job-related benefits, and have a better access to resources. The question explored in this paper is whether supporting MSMEs in a fragile state like Burundi could increase welfare. This issue should be analyzed using panel data, which is not yet available. Relying on cross-sectional data, there are indications that welfare could not be improved just through the provision of loans to MSMEs. Other channels could include the fostering of female entrepreneurship, increasing training, helping firms to grow, and focusing aid on MSMSEs outside the capital city where entrepreneurship suffers from the urban bias.  (download)

J. Nkurunziza