Rwanda | Gatsibo: NGOs to endeavour social issues

A six hours meeting that Gatsibo district authorities held at Joint Action Forum (JAF) with its partners in development on this February 2012 reported that the district authorities are not impressed by its partners who tackle issues that have already been attended to while there are very pressing issues. 

Gatsibo Development Partners in a meeting

Some people who attended the meeting said that even though the district only invited nongovernmental organisations as its partners, it ignored institutions like banks, media companies, hospitals, telecommunication companies and many others that contribute to the development of Gatsibo district.

The meeting was held to find solutions after Gatsibo district was named among the districts that poorly perform in good governance and achieving the set goals.

The district authorities discovered that many of its partners in development like Non Governmental Organizations  (NGOs) normally venture into the same projects whereby the district was proposing to join such projects as one as they create space for other necessary projects to come up. 

On the other side, the NGO, say “it was not easy since each NGO had its own set goals and our budgets are read at different periods of time whereby the governments financial budget starts in July and ends in June unlike our financial budgets that normally start in September and others in December which would be complicated for us to work together.

The mayor of Gatsibo district Ambroise Ruboneza said “some NGOs venture their finances in sponsoring children in academics yet these children lack more essential things like water which can make them drop out of school when they normally make long journeys every day away from their homes in search of water to bath before going to school.” He questioned

Ambroise advises their partners in development to come up with projects that will help solve people’s problems like access to clean water because there is a big challenge of accessing clean water in Gatsibo district as many of their people use water from ponds and rivers which is the main cause of many diseases in the district.

Even though the ministry of infrastructure statics say that 82% of Rwandans have access to clean water, things are totally different in Gatsibo district as people walk over 4 kilometres in search of water and yet the district authorities say there is nothing much they can do about it may be if they can only get good Samaritans to fund the projects.