Belgium has been providing budget support to the health sector in Rwanda since 2008 with a total value of EUR 13,000,000 EUR disbursed by December 2010. Following the signature of the new Indicative Cooperation Program between Belgium and Rwanda (2011 – 2014), with a provision of 32 million EUR for health sector budget support, a formulation mission was carried out in June 2011. This resulted in the signature of a Specific Agreement for a tranche of 5 million EUR, which was disbursed in February 2012. The remaining 27 million EUR of sector budget support remains to be engaged in support to the new Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP III) which was developed through a consultative process early 2012 and validated in July 2012, following an appraisal by an external team of consultants using the Joint Assessment of National Strategies (JANS) methodology.
The overall objective of the actual HSSP III is to ensure universal accessibility (in geographical and financial terms) of quality health services for all Rwandans. This new HSSP covers the period July 2012- June 2018. It will guide the future development of the sector and is analysed under Chapter 2.2. of the present Technical Note.