From the 28th to 29th March 2023, the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA) has held a one-day training of trainers (at the City of Kigali and Provincial levels respectively) on the implementation guidelines of “Umushinga ku Mudugudu” or Village Model Project (VMP).

Umushinga ku Mudugudu stems from the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) under the priority area on decent and productive jobs creation, whereby it provides for a strategic intervention to develop a mechanism to support at least one model income and employment- generating project in each village. The ultimate purpose of this initiative is to promote income and employment-generating projects at village level.

While officiating the training session at Rubavu District office, Mrs. UWAMBAJEMARIYA Florence, the Executive Secretary of Western Province, reiterated the Government of Rwanda’s commitment to eradicate extreme poverty and considerably reduce moderate poverty by 2024, and she emphasized on the responsibility Local Government entities to vehemently support the poorest households in their trajectory to graduate from poverty by liaising them with local economic development opportunities such as VUP, Girinka and other livelihoods programmes. “Umushinga ku Mudugudu matches well with this category of pro-citizen opportunities and it is thanks to the joint responsibility of administrative entities that it will be successful”, she stated.

Speaking at the event, Mr. RUTAYISIRE Moses, LCF Manager at LODA, revealed that: “The advent of the Village Model Project does not come to replace existing Government anti-poverty and entrepreneurship programmes; it rather comes in as a complementary mechanism to fix high unemployment and underemployment levels by unlocking the innovative and productive capacities of village-based resources (human and material resources) for social and economic transformation”.

As per the design, the support under VMP will consider sectors that are key economic drivers with the potential to contribute significantly to job creation and productive employment. These include Agriculture and Animal husbandry, Agro-processing, Wood products, Arts and Crafts e.g. handcrafts, Micro-processing/ Value Chain development, Services (ICT, Hospitality, Cosmetic, Transport, audio-visual), Manufacturing and Construction. It is also important to highlight that, as Community development-oriented Project, the VMP will be open to (a) Individual (individual-owned projects or sole proprietor company); (b) Group (projects owned by a group of people (two or more), group of companies or cooperatives, savings group); (c) Multi-stakeholder entities (e.g. Partnership of NGO and Cooperative); and (d) Private Company (with sole shareholder or multi-shareholders).

According to the pre-established guidelines governing Umushinga ku Mudugudu in its initial phase, it is expected that the City of Kigali and Districts leadership will select and advocate for relevant support for the best village project from each sector.

This kind of training was held at Gasabo District office for the District staff from the City of Kigali on 28th March 2023, and it was done concurrently at Rwamagana, Rubavu, Nyanza and Musanze on this 29th March 2023 at provincial level. Trainees are in turn expected to deliver the acquired package to Sector and Cell staff in forthcoming days to enable them grasp the concept of the Village Model Project, and thus facilitate citizens to make it implementable at the grassroots level.