RGB launches the 4th Rwanda Civil Society Barometer
On Wednesday February 28, 2024, Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) launched the Rwanda Civil Society Barometer (RCSB) 2023 which is a publication that assesses the status of Non-Governmental Organisations in Rwanda.
The RCSB 2023 is the fourth edition of the publication, following the 2012, 2015 and 2018 editions which were published in collaboration with Civil Society partners.
The event which took place at Kigali Marriott Hotel gathered representatives from various Public and private institutions, Faith Based Organisations and Civil Society Organisations.
Speaking to the participants, the RGB Chief Executive Officer Dr. KAITESI Usta appreciated the role of civil society in promoting citizens’ welfare.
Dr. KAITESI urged NGOs to work focusing on projects and activities that eradicate poverty among population and try to teach people how to fish instead of bringing them fish.
“Most of the NGOs have interventions oriented towards social protection but only a small number of the population has been moved out of poverty. We should be alleviating poverty not managing poverty” she said.
In her keynote, Ms Varsha Redkar-Palepu, the UNDP Resident Representative Ad Interim said that RCSB 2023 provides valuable insights into the progress and challenges as well as the opportunities within the sector and helps in understanding CSOs contributions to national development and the areas where further support and collaboration are needed.
The RCSB 2023 is built on four domains includes Participation and Inclusiveness, CSOs Environment, Governance and Values in CSOs as well as the Impact and Effectiveness of CSOs.
The findings show that the Impact and Effectiveness of CSOs is the highest performing domain with a score of 84.24% followed by the Participation and Inclusiveness with a score of 78.76%, Governance and Values in CSOs with 73.09% while CSOs Environment is lowest performing domain with a score of 73.08%.
The RCSB 2023 came out with some recommendations for some areas which need to be strengthened in order to improve the performance of CSOs in delivering on their mandate.
The recommendations include improving compliance with the requirements of the law governing NNGOs; Strengthen the Civil Society-Private sector partnership; National NGOs to comply with their statutes and to enhance their financial and human resources management systems; Strengthen measures to fight crimes of ML&TF within CSOs and Reinforce measures to fight corruption within CSOs.