Review of the Gacaca Process in Rwanda



Contract partner: Waldorf Lars - World Policy Institute, New School University Country: Ruanda Funding amount: € 7.800,00 Project start: 15.06.2006 End: 31.08.2006

Short Description:

Overall goal


As many as one million people were killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It is believed that the failure to punish those responsible for recurring waves of ethnic violence since 1959 was a key factor in enabling the 1994 genocide. In the last eleven years several initiatives aimed at bringing the perpetrators of the genocide to justice have been started. Over 100.000 people remain in prison awaiting trial. It was estimated that it would take the Rwandan judicial system up to 150 years to try just these cases. In order to speed up the judicial process for genocide cases, the government revived a traditional judicial process called Gacaca in 2001. A total of 260.000 Gacaca judges were elected in October 2001, Gacaca courts at the national level were launched at the beginning of 2005. Since then Gacaca processes are taking place in the entire country and involve the whole population. Since the re-establishment of the Gacaca system, The Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) has financed four projects dealing with the Gacaca:


1) Project 2178-00/2002: Bureau d'assistance technique au Département des Juridictions Gacaca Financial commitment: Euro 750.000, Project status : completed, new financial proposal for 1/2006 to 12/2007 pending

2) Project 2212-00/2003: Appui aux procédures judiciaires liées au génocide (RCN) Financial commitment : Euro 310.000,

3) Project 2316-00/2001: Monitoring des Procès Gacaca (Trocaire/ LIPRODHOR) Financial commitment : Euro 656.313

4) Project 2215-00/2003: Rwanda, Beyond the Gacaca (a documentary film by Anne Aghion)

Financial commitment: Euro 90.000,


In order to decide on its future involvement in supporting the Gacaca process the ADA has commissioned an assessment which should:

" Assess the current state of the Gacaca process and its planned developments

" Review the impact, effectiveness and the efficiency of Gacaca at local and national level

" Develop a donor/stake holder mapping

" Recommend Austrian level of involvement

project number 2251-05/2006
source of funding OEZA
sector Staatsführung & Zivilgesellschaft, allgemein
tied
modality
marker
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.
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