Objective and Purpose 

The Rwanda 2022 PEFA includes, for the first time, a PEFA Climate Assessment. Rwanda has used the PEFA process over the years to enact successful PFM reforms. This PEFA climate assessment will help Rwanda establish a baseline on the existing legal framework, institutions, systems, procedures and processes that support climate change activities throughout the budget planning and execution cycle. The Climate PEFA aims to help Rwanda enact reforms to improve and track results in the efficiency and effectiveness of climate-related policies and investments. 

The fiscal years for this assessment are FYs 2018/2019, 2019/2020, and 2020/2021. The last budget submitted to Parliament for purposes of this assessment was FY2021/2022 budget submitted in FY2020/2021. The cut-off date was June 2021, as per the ToR. The field mission began on Monday 11th April 2022 with a kick-off meeting with MINECOFIN and ended on 4th May 2022 with a debriefing meeting also with MINECOFIN. A day’s standard PEFA, PEFA Climate and GRPFM training workshop was organised on 25th April 2022 with participants from key GoR officials and development partners. The assessment was jointly conducted by international and local PEFA experts. There are 14 PEFA climate indicators; all but one (CRPFM-9) were assessed and applicable. CRPFM-9 was not applicable because there were no climate-change related taxes. 

Main Findings 

The GoR has developed a framework for mainstreaming environment and climate change into sector strategic plans and district development plans. They inform the preparation of sector medium-term strategic plans aligned to NDC-3 targets. Annual budget preparation documents provide guidelines on how to mainstream environment and climate change. Performance-Based Budgeting (PBB) reforms are expected to provide the desired linkage between resource allocation and the expected results in climate- related programmes and activities. Budget execution reports provide a narrative on the achievements in implementing environmental protection and climate change-related programs. In addition, REMA monitors progress in implementation of environmental and climate change policies and annually produces and publishes progress reports on state of environment in the country. Nevertheless, there is no tracking of climate-related expenditures, in addition to medium-term climate change targets in the medium-term fiscal strategy. Although the medium-term budget strategy (BFP) submitted to Parliament for scrutiny contains environment and climate change priority areas, there is no dedicated technical support on environment and climate change issues in parliament to undertake adequate technical analysis. 

As shown in figure 1 below, out of the 14 CRPFM indicators, none scored an ‘A’ or ‘B+’. That said, two indicators (CRPFM-1 Budget alignment with climate change strategies and CRPFM-11 Climate responsive fiscal decentralization framework) scored a ‘B’ which shows satisfactory performance. None scored a ‘C+’ and three (CRPFM-2 Tracking climate related expenditure; CRPFM-3 Climate responsive budget circular; and CRPFM-6 Climate responsive asset management) scored ‘Cs’, indicating average performances. Three indicators (CRPFM-5 Climate responsive public investment management; CRPFM-12 Climate related performance information; and CRPFM-13 Climate related performance evaluation) scored ‘D+’, and four indicators (CRPFM-4 Legislative scrutiny; CRPFM-7 Climate related liabilities; CRPFM-8 Climate responsive procurement; CRPFM-10 Compliance of climate related expenditure scored ‘Ds’, indicating poor performances. CRPFM-9 and CRPFM-14 were not applicable, as there are no climate-related taxes and the CoA does not track climate-related expenditure.

*Kindly note that in the text of this assessment report document the descriptive dimensions 5.2 and 5.3 will appear swapped, as this assessment was prepared before the final version of the PEFA Climate Supplementary Framework.