The state run Communal Development Fund (CDF) that has been operating under the Ministry of Local government is to be renamed to form an inter-ministerial organ. The 7-year old fund which was instituted to support the implementation of decentralization policy, to achieve good governance and sustainable economic development is changing name to Rwanda Local Development Fund (RLDF). This was announced recently by the CDF management while addressing development partners in the meeting for reviewing CDF success report after 7-years of existence on Thursday evening. According to the officials, some of the developmental activities in the ministries of Education, Infrastructure, Health and Agriculture will be submerged into the RLDF. Meanwhile, during a separate interview with The New Times, Letitia Nkunda the CDF Director said that the current reform is aimed at avoiding fragmentation of strengths and limiting expenditure. “We wanted to avoid duplication of work since some projects in various ministries were almost doing the same work as ours so the government decided to merge them all into RLDF,” Nkunda said. She added that since the inception of the fund, partners have increased which in turn increased the budget but she hastened to add that the funds were still not enough to sustain the available districts plans. ”DFID and World Bank have joined the existing partners mainly in Vision 2020 Umurenge and Ubudehe programmes so we expect to do a lot in terms of rural development,” Nkunda told reporters. CDF is the financing arm of the Central Government to the districts, established to facilitate the decentralization process. The fund is entitled to 10 percent of internally generated revenues to support rural development projects like constructing roads, bridges, energy rollout and building modern markets. Ends
