ABSTRACT
The 1990s were a challenging decade for development co-operation in Belgium. In Africa the former colony (Democratic Republic of Congo1) and the territories formerly administered by Belgium (Burundi and Rwanda) witnessed coups d'etats, civil war, regional conflicts, genocide and immense suffering of the population. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in all three countries. Aid to this region constituted the core of Belgium's African policies, in terms of both volume of aid and geopolitical attention up to the late 1980s. The crises affecting the three countries wiped away decades of development aid and constituted a major challenge for Belgian policymakers. In the view of some observers, they were a testimony to the failure of Belgian aid policies.
