A Local NGO, Intrahealth/Twubakane, has set aside US$6 million for capacity building for  Mayors in 12 districts form three provinces for five years.

This was revealed by the NGOs Grant Manager, Anatole Kaboyi, after three consecutive evaluation meetings hosted by Intrahealth/Twubakane with Mayors in Kigali.

The meetings aimed at evaluating whether Mayors efficiently used the donation given to them since last year.

"We have come here to evaluate what Mayors have achieved using the money we gave them. We aim to  build capacity for Mayors in order to achieve more goals towards Vision 2020,” Kaboyi said in an interview after the meeting which took place at their Kigali offices.

He said that the money given to the Mayors also helps the districts realize the improvement of the health sector in renovating or building health facilities and good health service delivery among others.

Other benefits also include proper long term planning, resource mobilization, budgeting and management under a USAID-funded grant to support the District Incentive Fund program which started in 2006.

Emmanuel Bahizi, the Executive Secretary of Kamonyi District, told The New Times that the USAID-funded project to build Mayor’s capacity has improved working plans in his district.

"We have been able to build houses for orphans and widows; bought goats, cows and pigs to fight malnutrition; built health facilities and also bought some health equipments,” Bahizi said. Various institutions and nations have been supporting capacity building in developing countries.

In 2004, the Executive Board of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) approved US$13.2 million to strengthen several national and regional capacity building projects and programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.

The seven projects and programs approved for funding included Rwanda Capacity Building Program with US$4.0 million for a duration of four years from 2004-2008.

The four-year Multi-Sector Capacity Building Program (MSCBP) sought to strengthen strategic human resources development and management and improve effective policy formulation.

The main goal of the Rwanda Capacity Building Program is to support the government’s development objective by creating a performing and efficient public sector.

Other donors supporting the Rwanda Capacity Building Program include Denmark, the United Kingdom (Department for International Development (DFID), the United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

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