Strengthening of the African Union Border Management Programme “From Barriers to Bridges” in Rwanda

KIGALI, Rwanda, February 12, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mary BAINE, together with the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Rwanda, Mr. Peter Fahrenholtz and the Head of the African Union Border Programme, Ambassador Aguibou Diarrah, today launched Rwanda's participation in the African Union Border Programme AUBP through an official handing over of equipment for border delimitation and demarcation.

Germany, through its assistance to the AUBP, supports both Rwanda and Uganda in jointly delimitating and demarcating their common border. The AUBP has the motto “From Barriers to Bridges”, which is to underline that international borders should not be perceived as barriers but rather as bridges which enable cross-border cooperation and international trade. Experts from the African Union and from the German International Cooperation Agency GIZ advise and support the countries in these activities. GIZ also aims to set up agreements with the two countries to support workshops, meetings, trainings, the purchase of construction materials, to promote awareness in local population and to encourage cross-border cooperation.

The equipment will allow the Rwandan Surveyors to conduct delimitation and demarcation works along the Rwanda/Uganda international boundary. Borderworks are always conducted jointly between the two countries, thus Rwandan surveyors will work hand-in-hand with their Ugandan counterparts. This approach ensures that both countries are involved, agree on the work conducted and finally agree on the delimitation and demarcation of their common boundary. The equipment includes 4x4 vehicles, a large scale flatbed scanner for the scanning of maps as the basis to determine the location of the border as well as high accuracy differential GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers to be used in surveying activities along the Ugandan/Rwandan border