While campaigning in Gicumbi District on Tuesday, July 9, incumbent President Paul Kagame, the RPF Chairman and flagbearer in upcoming elections, reiterated that security is the foundation upon which development is realized.

He was addressing thousands of RPF supporters from Gicumbi, Rulindo, and Burera districts who gathered at Gicumbi stadium as the party campaigned in Northern Province. Kagame joined supporters there after an interactive session with Rwandan content creators at Mulindi, RPF/A’s operational base during the liberation struggle.

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Reiterating his message throughout the campaign, Kagame said that the choice people will make in the elections will mark the continuation of the 30-year journey of rebuilding Rwanda.

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"Development starts with security; protecting ourselves and what we are building...it is based on the right mentality that is inclusive,” he said, pointing out that the politics of RPF and its allied parties is about inclusivity and urging people to do whatever improves their livelihoods.

Understandably, he added, the remaining task becomes development.

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Kagame has a deep connection to Gicumbi District, especially in Mulindi which was a pivotal strategic base for the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) high command between 1992 and 1994 during their struggle to liberate Rwanda.

It was there that he planned and executed the war effort until July 4, 1994, when Kigali fell –a part of history he shared with content creators on Tuesday.

In the presidential and parliamentary elections set for July 14-16, Kagame is competing with former lawmaker Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, and Philippe Mpayimana, an independent candidate.

Alphonsine Mukarwego, a 58-year-old mother of 10 in Gicumbi District, thanked Kagame for how he indiscriminately catered for people who were at Mulindi during the liberation struggle. Mukarwego narrated how she looked after some orphaned children, thanks to, among others, a cow she was given through Girinka, the one cow per poor family programme introduced in 2006.

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Mukarwego is now benefiting from the Green Gicumbi Project in her home region. She, like many other rural farmers, is cultivating tea and using the revenue to improve her family’s welfare.

In 2019, the government secured $32 million from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to implement a project called "Strengthening Climate Resilience of Rural Communities in Northern Rwanda’’, locally known as the ‘Green Gicumbi Project’.

Implemented by Rwanda Green Fund-FONERWA in collaboration with Gicumbi District and other stakeholders, the six-year adaptation project mainly focused on reducing vulnerability to climate change by enhancing the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities in the project intervention area, as well as reducing their exposure to climate risks.