Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA) has created a new leadership centre of excellence to spearhead the capacity building of local government leaders.

Local leaders will undergo induction, coaching and training aimed at preparing them to face challenges often encountered in the local government domain.  

The centre of excellence was approved in the General Assembly of the local government body that convened on Sunday, October 24 at Kigali Marriott hotel.

Ladislas Ngendahimana, the Secretary General of RALGA said that the centre will be a branch of RALGA to prepare new cohorts of leaders and conduct scientific studies and research to identify main gaps in the local leadership.  

"Limited skills have often been cited as one of the challenges in the local government, so after coaching, this new centre will conduct more research to identify the gaps in the domain and come up with solutions to address them”, he commented during the assembly.

Ngendahimana also adds that the centre will not only be reserved for Rwandan leaders only, as the country is among many other global local government bodies like the East African Local Government Authority (EALGA) and the Commonwealth local government forum among others.

Local government centre of excellence is expected to kick-start its operations in early 2022 with a budget of 1 billion Rwandan Francs.

As of now, the local government body is working on curriculums and content that will be distributed during the training, notably the history of Rwandan governance among other preps.

At first, RALGA had embarked on creating the local government institute to train and build capacity for the local leaders, but realized that the responsibilities are the same as the mandate of Rwanda Management Institute.

The body embarked on a centre of excellence which is open to all people and has a research aspect in its mandate.