Local Governments mark Innovation Day

Rwanda Association of Local government Authority (RALGA) last Friday celebrated the Local Government Innovation Day at Kigali Serena Hotel. Prior to the day, RALGA organised competitions at the various local government levels. The competitions aimed at revealing those with innovations and best practices and exposing them so that other leaders could learn from them, this would help them in solving their own problems hence fostering development. Some of the innovations/best practices which were presented by the local leaders at the function included poverty reduction plans. These included the introduction of cooperatives at village levels, creation of employment opportunities, and improvement of health care where some health centres were built with the efforts of the local people. This practice was started in 2007 where five leaders who won were sent to contest in the UN Public Service Competition awards and two of them reached the second round. In this year’s competition, there were three categories sponsored by the World Bank. These were at district, Sector (fourteen competed) and village levels. Every village was allowed to expose an innovation/best practice to be considered. Among all these contestants, only the two best districts, four sectors, and two villages were awarded putting into consideration; transparency, accountability, participation, innovation and social economic impact. The panel that awarded the marks included representatives from the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Local Government, National University of Rwanda, the Office of the Auditor General, Platform of Civil Society and RALGA. Ends