Rwanda's National Decentralization Policy October 2021

Rwanda’s Decentralization Policy was inspired by the fundamental principles of human rights, dignity, freedom, and development, which had been violated until 1994. The policy was adopted in2000, following a series of dialogue sessions with citizens and in consultation with stakeholders in the governance arena in a quest for good governance. It was subsequently revised in 2012 to keep it focused and aligned with the changing political priorities and socioeconomic aspirations.

The government adopted a phased implementation approach. Each phase of decentralization had its own significant and remarkable achievements. In addition, each new phase was informed by the lessons learnt from the previous phase, consequently leading to the revised decentralization policy in2012.

After the third phase, the actors continued implementing the imperatives of the previous decentralization policy of 2012. Even if there are impressive achievements from the implementation of the previous decentralization policy, challenges still stand in the way of effective decentralization. Moreover, new demands have come up as the country commits to new ambitions such as the African Union Agenda2063, EAC Vision 2050, Rwanda Vision 2050, National Strategy for Transformation 1, in order to speed up national development with the target of becoming a middle-income country.

The development process of this policy was participatory and consultative in nature with the aim of ensuring that the policy is evidence-based and reflects the views of key stakeholders in the area of decentralization and accountable governance.

The purpose and objective of this policy is “To deepen and sustain citizen centered governance and promote equitable local development for socio-economic transformation”.

The remarkable and significant achievements were observed around political, administrative, fiscal, and financial decentralization. However, the emerging governance and socio-economic development strategic issues were also experienced during implementation of previous policies of decentralization.The main challenges to be addressed in this policy are structure constraints, coordination framework, capacity constraints which undermine the effectiveness of decentralization implementation, fiscal and financial decentralization gaps, low use of ICT for service delivery and decision making at Local Government, and the level of participation of non-state actors.