NYARUGENGE - The government of Rwanda earmarks about Frw37million of the national budget  towards  capacity building programmes in the country annually. This was disclosed Friday by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, James Musoni, in a press conference held at the ministry offices.

The conference was convened to brief reporters about the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and its role in Rwanda.

The money which is reportedly channeled through universities and research institutions is geared towards producing national experts and cutting costs of hiring foreign professionals in various fields.

"We have produced some (national experts) in research, planning and public expenditure management, it’s a challenge to be solved gradually,” the Minister said.

The main objective of the ACBF is to build sustainable human and institutional capacity for growth, poverty reduction and good governance.

To that effect, it has given Rwanda a US$ 8,750,000 grant. The money will be allocated to different capacity building programmes in the public sector, training institutions, the private sector and civil society.

According to Edwin Forlemu, the Acting Executive Secretary of ACBF, the grant will be channeled through the Human Resource and Institutional Capacity Development Agency (HIDA) which coordinates and oversees implementation.

They intend to undertake capacity building at different institutions which include the Rwanda Institute of Administration and Management (RIAM), Private Sector Federation, National University of Rwanda’s department of Economics and Statistics, the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) and the School of Finance and Banking.

The foundation has also supported similar programmes in Public Financial Management and Multi-Sector capacity building.

"Capacity building will ever be an unfinished project because of emerging needs in different sectors but we are proud to contribute towards it in Africa,” said Forlemu.

ACBF’s support mainly covers areas of economic policy analysis and management, financial management and accountability, strengthening and monitoring national statistics, public administration and management.

Other areas of their intervention include strengthening of policy analysis and the capacity of national Parliaments and professionalism.

ACBF is an African foundation based in Zimbabwe and operates in more than 41 countries with 29 from Africa and 12 from Asia, Europe and Nothern America.

Since 1991, it has committed above $390 million to capacity building interventions and as of end last year it had disbursed more than US$218million.

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