Top leaders from the central government, local government, and members of the private sector and civil society have converged at the Rwanda Defence Force Combat Training Centre in Gabiro, Eastern Province, for a five-day leadership retreat that starts today.

The 14th National Leadership Retreat aims to evaluate how far the government has gone in implementing the country’s Vision 2020 and brainstorm on how to design Vision 2050 as mandated in the recent National Dialogue held last December.

This year’s retreat also comes a few months away from the completion of both the Seven-Year programme that guided the work of the current leadership and EDPRS II.

Under EDPRS II, which is Rwanda’s second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy, the government has targeted to spend about Rwf10 trillion between 2013 and 2018 in order to deliver the country to a middle income status envisioned in Vision 2020.

Prof. Anastase Shyaka, the chief executive of Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), told Saturday Times that the retreat is special given that it’s going to discuss the long term vision of the country whose urgency for fast development and positive transformation remains remarkable.

"The momentum to do better and the will to constantly examine ourselves and take measures to improve things is one of the characteristics of this country and it’s a good habit we should maintain. The foresight exercise is an imperative for Rwanda’s transformation,” he said yesterday as he boarded a bus to Gabiro.

‘More time for better results’

Shyaka also said Rwandans can expect the retreat to produce better results than the past ones that would take fewer days because officials this time around will have more time to discuss how to best serve Rwandans and lead them to the development they deserve.

The Chairperson of the Rwanda Civil Society Platform, Edouard Munyamariza, agrees that the ongoing retreat is a defining occasion for the country’s future, describing it as a time to plan the next blueprints that will guide national development.

Munyamariza said that many Rwandans are now looking forward to Vision 2050 and he figures the vision will have to be built around what the country will have achieved by 2020.

He advised that Rwandans from various categories should be consulted early enough about their views on the activities and objectives of Vision 2050 and how to do it should be one of the main questions to be answered by the retreat.

The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Claver Gatete, has said that preparing Vision 2050 when it is envisaged that the country will be a high-income economy will require having different medium term plans such as five-year programmes.

Toward middle income status

Gatete said at the National Dialogue last December that under current initial planning towards Vision 2050, Rwanda is projected to be an upper middle income country by 2035 with a per capita annual income of more than $4,000, while it will be a high income economy by 2050 when every Rwandan will be earning at least $12000 a year with a relatively high standard of living.

With the country’s annual per capita income estimated at around $720 today, the finance minister said the economy will need to be at an average annual growth of above 10 per cent, if Vision 2050 is to be achieved.

The retreat, which is expected to be opened by President Paul Kagame today, has brought together about 300 leaders. It will end on Wednesday.

The Minister in charge of Cabinet Affairs, Stella Ford Mugabo, explained that this year’s retreat will take more days than the previous retreats, which would normally take not more than three days, because the issues at hand this time around require more time to enable leaders to come up with concrete resolutions to drive the nation to the next stage.

Additional reporting by

Emmanuel Ntirenganya