Civil society organisations will never have the desired impact on grassroots as long as they remain under-funded.

This observation was made on Thursday during a ceremony to award a grant to eight local non-profit organisations.

The grant that was awarded jointly by Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and UN Rwanda.

"CSOs are crucial players in the implementation of government projects but with limited funding, their work becomes difficult,” said Peace Murungi, the executive secretary of the Rwanda civil society platform.

Th240,000 grant will help beneficiaries in promoting different programmes including modern agriculture, civic education, citizen participation, gender equality and human rights, among others.

 The joint grant project, launched in April this year, had awarded about $740,000 to 18 other not-for-profit organisations last month.

  "Only about 26 have so far benefited from these grants. But there are over 1000 CSOs,” Murungi said.

 Jean Paul Rwabuyonza, the co-coordinator of Civil Society Organisation’s project at RGB, said the grant aims at enlisting CSOs’ support in supporting the implementation of the country’s development programmes, especially the EDPRS2.

 "The beneficiaries were selected by representatives of key domains in the country, like women, the youth council, human rights commission, among others,” he said.

 Jean Bosco Senyabatera, the programmes manager of CCOIAB, a French acronym for the umbrella organisation of local NGO’s in development, said out of  182 applications submitted, 45 were shortlisted and only 26 qualified for the grant.