Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) is looking to step up monitoring of non-governmental organisations from the current quarterly to more frequent mode to ensure that they are closer to the realisation of their objectives.

Head of civil society organisations and political parties at RGB, Theodore Mutabazi, said to add to the annual evaluation, regular monitoring may go a long way in ensuring that the organisations have more impact on communities.

Officials are currently mulling over making it a monthly evaluation process.

RGB is the body mandated to register non-governmental organisations, including the faith-based ones, and political parties. The Board also accredits and monitors the functioning of the NGOs.

So far, RGB has registered 323 faith-based organisations and 379 local non- governmental organisations. 

Mutabazi called for openness and involvement of the beneficiaries and other development partners during conception, planning and implementation to have more successful projects.

"We are encouraging local NGOs to be open and shed light on what they are doing or intend to do in society to increase participation of the beneficiaries and other development partners in the projects. With that, the local community will also be aware of what is expected of them by the development partners and build a relationship with the local communities,” Mutabazi said.

He added that NGOs should not work in isolation and should be decentralised in such a way that they are close to their target beneficiaries and also urged the local communities to hold these organisations accountable.

"Non-governmental organisations should be positioned where they can reach their target beneficiaries. If they are targeting to implement projects in the rural areas, that’s where they should be based.  The government is decentralising funds and services to the sector level to reach the ordinary citizens, so should our development partners; decentralisation will help them understand the needs and appropriate solutions,” Mutabazi added.

The governance board also urged NGOs to strive to achieve sustainable independence as they seek to contribute to the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy that outlines Rwanda’s midterm development ambitions.

"Independence does not necessarily mean rebelling against donors. Independence is building organisations that execute their own programmes and projects in partnership with the government,” Mutabazi said.

"When an organisation is mature, they can channel the funding toward planned projects that will have a positive impact on the beneficiaries. The donors should not dictate to the organisations on what to do, the implementers know the communities they work in best and they know the needs. If donor demands are not in line with the country’s aspirations, you (NGOs) are not obliged to engage them.”

Although he did not rule out the existence of briefcase NGOs which may have ulterior motives such as collecting funds from donors, Mutabazi said with the current monitoring and evaluation, and follow ups from stakeholders like beneficiaries and the media, such NGOs are few if any and will not stay around for long. 

Canut Dufitumukiza, the executive secretary of Rwanda NGOs Forum on HIV/Aids and Health Promotion, recommended the strengthening of efforts to deal with briefcase NGOs.

"We can’t pretend that there exists no briefcase NGOs. The best way to reduce the chances of these bodies continuing with exploitation is by working with respective umbrella bodies which will govern the conduct of their member organisations and who will monitor their functioning,” he said.

Dufitumukiza added that before organisations can receive funding from donors they need to get a recommendation letter from umbrella bodies. 

"These are part of the recommendations and regulations in the draft legal framework to be soon tabled in our general assembly,” he said.

As the regulating body and umbrella bodies push for measures to weed out unscrupulous NGOs, some beneficiaries are slowly losing faith in NGOs, saying they are profit-driven rather than charities.

Emmanuel Gatara, a farmer in  Bugesera District, said it is not uncommon to see ‘organisations’ camp in rural areas and at times bring along donors only for them to wind up shortly leaving behind uncompleted projects. 

"Slowly farmers are getting tired of most of the NGOs who show up pledging to assist the local communities and go ahead to register us as beneficiaries but fail to deliver on their promises. They probably make money through us,” Gatara said.