I made a point of asking for a readjustment of the concept of our force (...) The main thing is to adopt a proactive and preventive posture of exacti… - Valentine Rugwabiza

A peacekeeping mission can never be a substitute to what is the primary responsibility of the country, which is to secure its territory and to secure its people. Now, having said that it is clear that it takes time.

Rwanda would be a different story today, if the post-genocide Government did not invest much in forging a new Rwanda, successful in ensuring inclusivity and equal opportunities of all its citizens, overcoming ethnic divisions, engaging reconciliation and restorative justice as well as recover trust in state institutions

Without a single doubt, it is appreciated by the population because they are the beneficiaries of those activities. But to be fair, we do have a number of other contingents that undertake activities such as having medical days where they provide medical services to people in the communities where they are deployed. So, we do have a few other contingents that provide such activities. And it is appreciated by the population. I believe that while it is appreciated, those are ad hoc activities. We need, and that is the other part of my responsibilities as Special Representative of the Secretary-General, to make sure that we also mobilize all the agencies of the UN country team. They are doing quite a lot, but [we need to] mobilize and mobilize resources so that they can do much more, and instead of having ad-hoc activities, make sure that we all work together to empower the population to conduct the activities for themselves.