Grassroots innovators need to be supported

Editor, RE: “A bottom-up approach to sustainable development” (The New Times, January 6). Humanity has the ability to make development more sustainable. It is just a matter of taking a pause and reflecting as you did, and then reframe our mindset away off the many distractions around. And then, following reflection, right away act accordingly as Mr. Habiyaremye and a few others did and still doing at “micro/local” level. In my humble opinion, one among the major impediments we, here in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, are currently facing is the type of 18th-19th century Western type bureaucracy and life model we inherited from colonial times, as an idealized system and way of life that does not at all encourage reflection, let alone as you say, not at all initiating nor aiming at “sustainable development”. To me, the question is: How could we practically promote further, and systematically encourage people like Habiyaremye, the many unknown grass-root innovators and entrepreneurs struggling so hard at the bottom of the SD trail? How come, for instance, our government and private offices are equipped with cheap and shoddy furniture from somewhere in Asia, and no one thought to instead commission furniture, curtains, office bins…made in Rwanda? How else people like Habiyaremye and their businesses will develop sustainably if, for instance, they are not strongly supported through an institutionalized programme of “locally made products”? Francois-Xavier Nziyonsenga

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Grassroots innovators need to be supported