Local leaders have been challenged to involve residents within the planning, monitoring and evaluation processes of local activities in order to ensure ownership and sustainable development.

The deputy CEO, for Rwanda Governance Board, Amb Fatuma Ndangiza was Thursday speaking at the official launch of the Citizen Forum, a platform for dialogue established to discuss and reflect on needs, priorities and challenges within their communities.

The Citizen Forums, organised by Never Again Rwanda, which were launched in Karongi District, will serve as a platform for dialogue among people to discuss and reflect on needs, priorities and challenges within their respective communities.

They will be composed of opinion leaders from the communities and will convene twice every month.

Ndangiza said that Rwanda’s development should be citizen-led, as enshrined in the EDPRS2, which calls for inclusiveness and participation of citizens at levels of the decision making cycle.

"We strive to ensure that Rwanda is a well governed state, the leaders have a responsibility of ensuring good service delivery, but the citizens should challenge their leaders on service delivery and accountability of how activities are planned and executed’’ Ndangiza said.

She added that programmes such as the Nine Year Basic Education need full involvement of the people to ensure maximum output.

The Citizen Forums, which will be held in ten districts, operating at the community level, aims to promote participatory Governance through dialogue; it aims to build the capacity of citizen to better assess their needs and priorities, strengthen their link with policymakers.

Eric Mahoro, the Director of Programs, at Never Again Rwanda challenged the members of Citizen Forums to champion dialogue as a channel for not only addressing citizen problems but also facilitating discussions leading to development at the community level,

Mahoro explained that through the forums, citizen will be empowered at a community level to discuss their rights and responsibilities in policy and programme making.

"Through these platforms, citizens will be enlightened on the policies being developed by the government and the impact such policies may have on their lives.

He explained that through these forums citizens will be able to prioritise their concerns and communicate them to government officials using the existing and new mechanism to facilitate citizen participation in planning, decision making and evaluation as well as to hold the government officials in decentralised entities accountable.

"You can’t give what you don’t have, facilitators should be exemplary citizens, should possess the integrity in their communities, and should have foresight as a key ingredient to engage dialogue both vertically and horizontally,’’ Mahoro said.

Never Again Rwanda is a peace building and human rights organization that was founded in response to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.