Rwanda | Nyaruguru district: Muganza residents raise Rwf 5 million in Agaciro Development Fund

It was a between 500 and 600 people euphoric crowd that gathered at the Muganza sector’s premises in Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, to contribute a total of Rwf 5,905,430 (about 9,850$) to the Agaciro Development Fund (AgDF) on Wednesday.

One by one, in a four hours’ exercise (from noon to 4 PM local time), nearly each of the crowd freely came forward and made their pledges within a few minutes’ speech.

Rwf 188,300 – that is about 310$ − was donated in cash. The remainder of the money was offered through pledges and the contributors’ full identity details were provided for the sector’s leadership to follow up with the pledges afterwards.

And at the end of the event, Simon Ndayiragije, Executive Secretary of Muganza sector, was upbeat.

“This is solely the money from Muganza’s lay people and some of the private servants. No public servants’ money in there because they had already contributed to the fund following their different departments”, Ndayiragije explained.

“I was astounded to see how even school children could come forward and support the fund with their contribution. This shows that more and more people are getting grounded in our country’s [Rwanda] home-grown solutions’ model”, he added.

Fidèle Michel Nkundabera, 39, echoes the same view.

“Western powers’ aid should come as a supplement to our home-grown efforts to solve our own problems. Never should their aid be something to entirely rely on . After all, that aid money indirectly goes back to the West through a number of so-called Western experts that come with it”, said Nkundabera, whose 30 member-business cooperative donated Rwf 1,500,000 to AgDF.

Muganza residents’ contributions to AgDF come after a similar move in Ruheru sector, still in Nyaruguru district, where a total of Rwf 13,528,000 (about 23,000$) was pledged last Friday.

The money in AgDF is kept in the coffers of the country’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning which normally deals with budgeting.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame officially launched AgDF on August 23 in a bid to curtail the country’s reliance on foreign aid, among others.