The annual National Dialogue Council, or Umushyikirano, gets underway at the Camp Kigali convention facilities today, with this year’s edition expected to attract more delegates than the previous ones.

This is the thirteenth edition of the Umushyikirano, a home-grown concept that has increasingly become a popular platform as it offers an opportunity to citizens and their leaders to openly engage on various development programmes with view to identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks and promote efficiency.

Year in year out we have seen Umushyikirano serve as the catalyst that helped key government programmes, such as Girinka, remain on track.

This year’s edition will be held under theme, "Rwandans’ Choices –Foundation of National Development and Dignity”, with a particular focus on the recently adopted 2015-2030 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how best to integrate them into the national development blueprint.

Rwanda has widely been recognised as an outstanding performer under the global development agenda that preceded the SDGs, code-named the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), achieving a good number of the set goals and inspiring other developing countries in several ways.

If the country could post a strong performance vis-à-vis the MDGs, which were adopted just a few years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, -- at a time when it was still reckoning with the immediate aftermath – it’s safe to say today that we are in a much stronger position to perform much better, considering the foundation that has been laid over the last couple of years.

Delegates at the National Dialogue Council should actively deliberate on these development issues to ensure that the country’s growth curve continues to rise.

Related to this is the need to promote ownership of national development programmes, with view to increasingly make Rwanda less and less dependent on foreign aid and ultimately achieve economic self-sufficiency. There has been notable improvement with regard to the role of internally generated revenues in the financing of the National Budget in recent years but more needs to be done.

The event should also highlight the importance of the youth in shaping a bright future for the country, by promoting initiatives that empower the young people and give them the best possible chance of living a good life.

Jobs, electricity, agricultural output, climate change, a competitive workforce and service delivery are among key issues that Rwandans will hope the meeting will sufficiently discuss and take concrete measures on.

This year’s Umushyikirano should serve as an opportunity for improvement in many areas to ensure faster, better results.