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31/12/2008

I am Sigurd Vangermeersch. Since July 2006 I have been the Programme Manager for VVOB in Rwanda. A fascinating, challenging job - but never an easy one!

Above all, 2008 has been the year in which our new programme (2008-2010-2013) took off. After a long period of prospection and identification, our team of five technical assistants and about ten local collaborators finally started working towards our targeted results in 2008. My chief responsibility in this endeavour is to direct, monitor and adjust our interventions. I am also responsible for the communication with Brussels. The greatest challenge is to integrate all of our separate interventions in a single clear and relevant programme. How are we to maximize partner involvement? How do we as VVOB manage to get ourselves integrated in Rwanda’s strategic options? How are we to adjust our initiatives to the policies of other organizations and institutions operative in Rwanda?

My job is extremely gratifying. I get the impression that our initiatives truly help to make a difference. Despite our modest size as a developmental agent -our budget is about E900.000 per annum - we manage to stay in the picture. When VVOB is explicitly mentioned at the annual joint review of the educational branch, that is, alongside such big brothers as the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, DFID and BTC... it is hard to resist the urge to start gleaming with pride.

Belgium is operative in Rwanda with several agents. Sometimes, these agents are criticized for their failure to collaborate with eachother. In the context of the so-called ‘decompartmentalization’ of Belgian development co-operation, the collaboration between the three Belgian agents involved in field of vocational training is becoming increasingly concrete. This is a long-term work-in-progress, the foundations of which were laid in the course of 2007-2008.

It is now clear that, in 2009, VVOB, BTC and our French-speaking colleagues at APEFE will articulate a joint Belgian programme of over 7,5 million euro. This too gives me a lot of personal satisfaction. First of all, I am convinced that we will program an intervention that is relevant to Rwanda. Secondly, we are tackling an important challenge for Belgian development co-operation, i.e. the harmonising, or rather, the attunement of the different modalities within Belgian and Flemish development co-operation, leading to surplus value for the modalities involved, as well as our joint output.