Kigali – Today on 27th December 2018 there was held a meeting on the coordination and implementation of local economic development (LED) projects. Convened by the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) and LODA, this quarterly meeting gathers Sector Ministries and Agencies’ staff (namely MINECOFIN, MININIFRA, MINAGRI, MINICOM, MoE, RDB, RTDA, REG, WASAC, RHA, RAB, RCA, RLMUA & REMA), District Vice Mayors in charge of Economic Affairs, District Executive Secretaries, Executive Secretaries of Provinces and the City of Kigali, Directors of One Stop Centre of Districts, Directors of Business Development and Employment Unit of Districts, Director of District Development Programs and Director of Planning at the City of Kigali.

The meeting is meant to witness the progress of project implementation and review the challenges met across Quarter 2. In more specific terms, the objectives of the meeting are:

• Identification of issues hampering the implementation of industry sector and Cross Border Markets;
• Identification of issues affecting the implementation of local economic development projects for Quarter 2;
• Effective operationalization of District Project Management Committee (DPMC);
• Matters hindering Tax collection; and
• Challenges affecting the implementation of SACCO program.

While officiating the meeting, Minister of Local Government, Prof. SHYAKA Anastase reiterated values of integrity, accountability, precision and efficiency which govern the national planning for transformation. “Precision is the mother of delivery, and the latter guarantees the transformation socio-economic transformation we want”, he said.

Projects at glance amount to 835 projects planned for 2018/2019, and are classified into categories of Agriculture (123), Decentralization (21), Education (140), Energy (52), Environmental and Natural Resources (91), Health (38), Private Sector Development (26), Transportation (130), Urbanization & Rural Settlement (94), Water & Sanitation (120). The budget dedicated to study and physical implementation of these projects is equal to 174,344,153,522 Frw.

This periodic meeting is a kind of flashback to the implementation of the annual plan (achievements, remaining tasks, budget execution, and challenges) in comparison to expected outputs/outcome, and ends up with adoption of strategic actions to attain pre-set goals towards socio-economic transformation.