MPs have expressed support for the government’s proposal to change the Rwanda Local Development Support Fund (RLDSF) to a ‘more user friendly name’ – the Local Development Agency (LODA).This came up Thursday as the Chamber of Deputies’ Standing Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Environment, examined a bill establishing LODA and determining its responsibilities, organization and functions.The transformation will also put more emphasis on the critical task of coordinating development initiatives by the agency at the grass roots level. Joseph Désiré Nyandwi, the Deputy Chairperson of the committee, told reporters that he appreciates the changes, especially now that more money was being injected into development activities at the grassroots level. “The bill is important especially in view of the fact that government now accepts to put 10 percent of its domestic revenues into development projects carried out by grass roots administrative entities,” he said.The RLDSF has been operating for over a year. Previously, it was known as the Common Development Fund (CDF), a government-owned fund set up to support the implementation of the decentralization policy. CDF was launched in 2002 but later combined the VUP and Ubudehe programmes to create the RLDSF.According to Laetitia Nkunda, the RLDSF Director General, the key importance of the changes is that it won’t just be a fund any more.“We wanted a user friendly name as the Rwanda Local Development Support Fund is difficult to pronounce for everybody. And another issue is, it is not only a fund because it also has the mandate of coordinating the local development interventions of the government’s local entities,” Nkunda said. She noted that coordination of development activities is added to improve the manner in which development funds released by the Ministry of Finance are used, in all sectors.LODA will continue with RLDSF’s other objectives which include; supporting development activities in local administration, serving as an intermediary between local governments and donors, especially those involved in financing development activities and setting up mechanisms of distributing financial support the local administrative entities.Meanwhile, the government increased spending on infrastructure projects in the current fiscal year as it seeks to further enhance doing business as well as boost the country’s economic growth. It plans to spend over Rwf600 billion on roads, energy and other development projects. Development expenditure in the previous budget was Rwf 508.6 billion.
