Despite registered success in ensuring accountability of leaders, both at the central and local government levels, there is still a lot to be done in order to realise the country’s vision for development.

This was said by the Minister of Local Government Francis Kaberuka while launching a three year project that seeks to improve capacity of local governments to confidently and effectively respond to accountability demands.

The project dubbed, "Deepening Accountable Local Governance in Rwanda (DALGOR)”, will be implemented under the Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA).

The project will cost Euros 660,000 (approx. Rwf550 million), largely funded by the European Union, according to officials.

It also aims at contributing to the increased voice of multi-stakeholders in making key national policies, programmes and local decisions that affect the lives of citizens, increase ownership and improve the implementation of the government decisions by local governments for better service delivery.

It targets elected leaders and a group of technical staff at the district, sector, cell and village levels, and citizens as the end beneficiaries.

The project will operate in five districts of Gasabo, Nyamasheke, Nyamagabe, Burera and Ngoma.

"We still need to put in more efforts for the years ahead to realise public accountability, citizen empowerment, participation in decision-making and service delivery, so as to attain the desired accountable governance,” said Kaboneka.

He said the project will help improve the capacity of local governments to effectively respond to upward, horizontal and downward accountability demands.

"Investing in people by building their capacities, especially local government leaders and staff to be able to deliver on their mandate requires concerted efforts from all stakeholders,” he added.

"Since we operate as one government, none of these demands for accountability can be best responded to if one is left out. That is why it is important to continuously build local government capacities,” Kaboneka notedNoël Ntahobari, the project coordinator, said that even though accountable governance has been instrumental in fast-tracking citizen-centred development delivery since decentralization started, local governments still have challenges to confidently and effectively respond to upward, horizontal and downward accountability demands.

He said the project would increase evidence based, bottom up led and citizen centred nature of key national and local political decisions that affect citizens.

He added that the project would also ensure effective mechanisms, methodology and tools for interactive public problem posing, solving and giving feedback the at local level.

Michael Ryan, the head of European Union Delegation to Rwanda, said the extent to which the government had been accountable over the past years in various domains was impressive, adding that the project was worth supporting given the expected results.

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