The MDGs represent a major step toward improving the effectiveness of national and international development efforts. They provide a way to measure progress in achieving a set of public goods essential to improving the welfare and cohesion of a society. Regular monitoring and reporting of development outcomes measured by the MDG targets require transparency and accountability among all development actors—on the part of state and its people and on the part of programme countries and development partners.

The summit of the 2002 UN Session was a landmark occasion that brought together an unprecedented number of nations to form a global consensus on the challenges facing humanity and, more importantly, on what needs to be done to overcome these challenges. The resulting Millennium Declaration, subsequently signed by all UN member states including Rwanda, says: “We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want.”

The finalization of this second report on Rwanda’s national progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) coincides with the mid-term of 2015 MDGs, the launching of second phase of EDPRS and Rwanda Vision 2020, which will guide us towards a future of prosperity, harmony, peace and political stability.