HUYE - Southern province has been called upon to embrace new  forms of partnerships capable of boosting equitable and sustainable development.

Speaking during an evaluation meeting of partnership programmes between various districts and the Rhineland Palatinate last week, Joseph Rurangwa, a policy analyst for good governance and decentralisation in the Ministry of Local Government called for more sustainable frameworks.

"We have seen the emergence of new special partnerships based on investments rather than grants. This is laudable,” Rurangwa said.

The evaluation of programmes under the partnership between some targeted districts and the Rhineland Palatinate in the period 2009-2010 revealed substantial progress in the health and education sectors.

Teams from districts in Rwanda have reciprocated visits by their counterparts in the Rhineland Palatinate. However, communication between partnership committees on the ground in Rwanda and their partners abroad was found to be ineffective.

‘We need to change the way we communicate; people here rely on verbal communication while many partners prefer written communication. They write more and more frequently but we are not fast in responding,” said Rurangwa.

Michael Nieden, the director of the coordination office of the Rhineland Palatinate reiterated the need for maintaining communication and making sure that village committees are operational.

Nieden stressed the need for starting up partnerships with districts within the region which he said would be more beneficial to the people.

"It is now time that we shift away from the dependency syndrome. New forms of partnerships that are more sustainable are thus called for,” he said.

During the meeting, the Provincial Governor, Fidele Ndayisaba called upon local leaders to make sure that partnership committees are operational and productive.

District leaders singled out language as the biggest impediment to communication between local residents and their partners abroad.

"There is no direct communication between our people and their partners because of language problems, they have to communicate through interpreters and most cases the original message is lost in translation,” said Alphonse Munyentwari, the Mayor of Nyamagabe district.

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