The incident happened during the downpours of Wednesday afternoon.
The lightning death toll reaches four in the Western Rwanda since heavy rainstorms started in the region a fortnight ago.
Anoncée Tuyisenge, the Executive Secretary of Kanama Sector, told IGIHE yesterday that the two students were on the way to their afternoon class when the lightning struck them.
In the Western Province, lightning struck Samuel Uwihanganye in Mutuntu Sector of Karongi District on Tuesday as he slept with wife and children. That same day in the district, it struck Edouard Nsabimana in Twumba Sector.
In Rutsiro District’s Musasa Sector, lightning killed a primary five student.
The number adds up to over 30 killed by lightning earlier in the year. They were mainly in the districts of Nyaruguru, Karongi, Ngoma and Rulindo.
After her visit to Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) on Wednesday, Zuma said other African countries should emulate Rwanda’s model on home grown solutions if they want to move forward.
Zuma and her delegation learnt about Rwanda’s own initiatives such as Gacaca jurisdiction, Girinka (one cow per family) programme, Ubudehe categorisation of citizens basing on their financial means, and community work locally known as ‘Umuganda’.
Others are National Leadership Retreat widely known as ‘Umwiherero’, National Dialogue (Umushyikirano), and leaders’ performance contract (Imihigo), among others.
Zuma said she and her delegation were eager to learn from Rwanda’s strategy that beat odds of the genocide to set the country on the cureent development trajectory.
“Nobody has the monopoly of ideas. Everyone has ideas. We believe that the first person to learn from is your neighbour —another African country which is doing well.
We are here to exchange ideas, to see where things are working better and where we can adapt the ideas to our own situation,” she said.
Zuma is immediate former Chairperson of African Union Commission and divorced wife of immediate former President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma.
RGB CEO Prof Anastase Shyaka said the talks with visitors were instrumental for both sides, adding that Rwanda and South Africa will keep sharing ideas for the citizens’ benefits.
“We have shared about our service delivery and institutions’ collaboration. They have also told us about how they also do it as we are all striving to build a citizen-based governance,” he said.
Zuma also hailed Rwanda’s steps towards ICT, saying that Rwanda’s decision to put ICT infrastructure wall-to-wall is something that the entire African continent should emulate.
On this tour, Zuma and delegation also visited other institutions including ministries and parastatals.
The historic moment was made on a very wet Thursday afternoon with the rain pouring heavily on the artificial turf of the Kigali Regional Stadium in Nyamirambo. But despite the depressing weather, diehard Rayon Sports FC fans were singing and cheering for their team.
In the first ten minutes of the match, Eric Rutangwa tried to sweep the ball past Young Africans custodian for the opening goal, but was stopped by Young Africans’ Haiji Shaibu.
Caleb Bonfils Bimenyimana was the one who swept the ball past the custodian for the opening goal, exactly on the 19th minute.
As the match closed on a 1-0 at half time, Young Africans came back battling for an equalizer, but to no avail as Rayon Sports’ players stayed with the ball.
Lucky enough for the Blues, last minute efforts by the visitors to get an equaliser bore no fruit as Rayon Sports who played with a handful players, broke into jubilation after the final whistle.
The win took Rayon Sports’ count to nine points, placing it just behind USM Alger, which won 2-1 in another tie against Kenyan Gor Mahia. The team will wait for their quarter-final opponents on Monday, September 3.
[Click here for more pictures->https://www.flickr.com/photos/igihepictures/sets/72157697555252512]
BRD’s Ndera Affordable Housing Project seeks to provide 1,750 units in Ndera Sector of Gasabo District, not far from the Kigali Special Economic Zone.
The entire project will cost $35 million to avail 5,000 units on an area of 19 hectares.
The units include apartments of two bedrooms and a laundry room at the prices between Rwf27.3 million and Rwf32.76 million each, three bedrooms and a laundry room at Rwf41,160,000, and three to four bedrooms duplex villas costing between Rwf50.4 million and Rwf57.12 million each.
“To increase urbanisation at rate of 35% by 2020, the Government of Rwanda in partnership with Morocco investors is planning to avail 5000 housing units starting with phase 1 of 1,750 Housing Units dispatched in the different categories with their respective prices,” reads part of BRD’s statement.
The investor is Groupe Palmeraie Développement, one of the Moroccan leaders of Real Estate development and hotel management.
The statement reads that eligible buyers are non-home owners with a monthly net salary between Rwf200,000 and Rwf1.2 million. This can be a combined income for spouses or one income for a single person.
The booking has started and interested people must have the 5% down payment ready to be paid at the completion of the units.
“Once the required minimum bookings are reached, the entire 1st phase (1,750 units) will be constructed at once,” it reads.
According to the statement, the site will have good roads, parking lots, local shops and green space, among other facilities.
Around 1,000 housing units are developed in the City of Kigali annually while the demand requires 31,000 units.
OECD is a 36-member club of the world’s most developed economies.
The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that Israel former Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein and former ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, are working hard to see Rwanda join the club.
During his visits to Rwanda as Attorney-General, Weinstein developed a good relationship with President Paul Kagame.
When Weinstein left office, he and Prosor held talks with Kagame and Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo as Rwanda was weighing in joining the OECD.
The Israelis helped their country join OECD in 2010.
Joining the OECD would foster Rwanda’s development and foreign investment.
“We all saw eye to eye. They showed enthusiasm that Rwanda should go for it. After very little time had passed, they hired us. They said, ‘you have experience, you did it in Israel, you can get it done for Rwanda,” Weinstein told The Jerusalem Post of the talks he had with Kagame and Mushikiwabo.
He said that, after the 1994 Genocide that devastated Rwanda, the country’s economy and political situation have stabilised, adding that attracting foreign investors is now Rwanda’s high priority.
Weinstein said that for Rwanda to hire him and Prosor also proved the country’s serious commitment.
If Rwanda joins OECD soon, it may be the first African country to be in the organisation.
South Africa tried to join but its methods of governance hindered the bid.
Weinstein said that they have already started to lobby allies on behalf of Rwanda.
He said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria also views the potential of Rwanda joining the same way that the Israeli does.
“He wants to broaden the OECD. He really wants African countries to join. He tried hard with South Africa,” said Weinstein referring to OECD SG.
He, however, predicted that joining OECD can take Rwanda more than five years as the process also took Israel more than three years.
Talking of Rwanda’s potentials, Weinstein described Kigali as a Western-style city, saying that Kigali is “orderly, developed, clean and secure.”
Weinstein said Rwanda has gone beyond the genocide effects to embrace “a genuine forgiveness process,” contrary to Israelis who say about the Holocaust: “We don’t forget and we don’t forgive.”
He said that in Rwanda the approach is: “We don’t forget, but we do forgive.”
Weinstein plans to help Rwanda move toward OECD acceptance by encouraging a free market, democracy, transparency and the rule of law.
This entails a five-part strategy proving Rwanda’s sufficiency of its internal laws, independence of its state prosecution and judiciary from political influence, the stability of its banks and a readiness to comply with international conventions.
Weinstein has legal review assistance by veteran attorney Ron Dror and law clerk Yael Hadad. The team is now advancing Rwanda’s OECD bid.
“Africa is the only continent not represented in the OECD, and I think everyone should applaud Rwanda [for] its desire to break the barrier and become the first African country to join the organisation,” said Prosor.
He added that joining OECD would be of mutual interest for both Rwanda and international community as other African countries can follow Rwanda’s lead in joining the club which requires highest international standards.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has rolled out projects from Benin to Zanzibar that increase the engagement, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for young people. African governments are on board, having pledged in the 2014 Malabo Declaration to adopt an accelerated and inclusive agricultural growth model placing high priority on youth participation.
The key driver for improved youth employment is access – to capital, credit, training, tenure, natural resources and, in particular, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In fact, the Internet offers concrete hopes for innovation and prosperity, which, when applied to agriculture, may free the sector of its stigma – drudgery and poor income prospects – to make it more attractive for young people.
While the ways to prioritize youth, even by implementing preferential policies, will vary from place to place, we can all learn from every success story.
FAO worked with the Nigerian government on developing its Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme, which has already offered training to more than 7,000 rural youth as well as provided starter packs to create their own agribusinesses. The program is also mobilising public investments that will ultimately benefit more than 700,000 rural young people over the next five years.
FAO has further contributed to Senegal’s Rural Youth Employment Policy – which aims to foster the creation of more than 100,000 jobs per year – by helping set up a series of small rural hubs where youth can learn about farming, food processing and marketing. The Government was also able to launch a National Observatory of Rural Employment, a dynamic online hub allowing rural youth, producers and development partners to monitor the national labour market and get information and data regarding agricultural products and trends.
In Guinea-Bissau, FAO found that introducing pilot programmes for aquaculture was a way to give local youth—many of whom had tried to migrate to cities—an important role with multiple benefits, producing additional income, better nutrition and fertilizer for cassava farmers. Now the initiative is expanding by building hatcheries, creating more jobs and a value chain that can be scaled up.
FAO is also a strong supporter of the increasingly important Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum, which plays a critical advocacy role for its members and facilitates the inclusion of youth in the country’s economic and social transformation.
Nevertheless, we cannot expect that such a high number of young people entering the labour market every year (nearly 10 million) will find employment in the traditional agricultural sectors. We need to explore all segments related to rural activities. For that, we need to promote a new kind of rural transformation: an urbanization of rural areas equipped with basic services such as education, health, electricity, internet access and so on.
The urbanization of rural areas also means the adoption of a territorial approach focused on strengthening the physical, economic, social and political links between small urban centres and their surrounding rural areas. Infrastructure investments, especially in roads and storage capacity, would help to connect producers, agro-industrial processors, and other segments of the value chains. This can create a lot of jobs and opportunities for youth.
The African continent is also home to a large number of family farmers with very small sized plots cut off from markets. It is very important that these people be organized into cooperatives or other forms of association. Otherwise, it will be impossible to integrate them into modern agrifood chains. Cooperatives and other associations are the only way for providing family farmers with technical assistance, capacity building, financial resources and access to modern technologies.
Farmers have for some time benefited from ICT to access price and weather information. Emerging uses range from weather-based crop insurance and traceable certification for specialty markets to high-resolution soil maps and tractor rentals for smallholders. Crop disease management is another promising ICT frontier. FAO has developed a new app allowing smallholders to detect Fall Armyworm, an invasive species that poses a grave risk to maize, a major staple crop in Africa. Nutrition, biodiversity and climate challenges all point to an increased potential of digitally-leveraged applications with positive impacts on rural employment.
Information technology can be a strong multiplier in the effort to achieve the transformation needed in rural areas. Rural youth in Africa have plenty of hopes and dreams with enormous opportunities across the continent to realize them. Efforts of all stakeholders in this direction are definitely a big part of a sustainable future.
{{Opinion by José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General}}
The inequality was grounded in both laws and culture, making men feel superior while women had to accept their position, some happily, others as a last resort.
And now, laws and more efforts are breaking the status quo.
The law governing persons and family adopted two years ago brought change as the fact that now both spouses – man and woman – are jointly responsible for the management of the household, including moral and material support as well as its maintenance as article 209 of the law puts it.
More concerted efforts have seized advantage of Rwanda’s political will to promote gender balance and fight Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
One of the efforts now bearing fruits is Indashyikirwa project, loosely translated as agents of change.
David Nkundibiza, 37, was once a GBV perpetrator against his wife Clementine Nyirantegerejimana, 36.
The couple has been married for 10 years and has three children. However, the dawn struck recently into the family that lives in Jomba Sector of Nyabihu District where the couple is championing GBV fight in the community.
With his infant on his back in a conference room at the Kigali Convention Centre on Tuesday, Nkundibiza surprises many as they find it strange for a man to put a baby on his back while his wife is around.
Nkundibiza told the media that his mind wasn’t any different a few years ago.
“I grew up raising my younger siblings but it all changed when I became a man and got my own babies. I believed taking care of children is up to women,” he said.
On his side, his wife Nyirantegerejimana says she was formerly burdened by most of the household’s chores alone plus babysitting their children as her husband, Nkundibiza, was often going to the bar immediately after working on the farm together with her.
She says her husband has now changed to share all tasks as they also share ideas on what to do for the benefit of their family.
Their testimony is one of the many being shared around the country where trained activists helped families get rid of GBV through different channels including women space forum, community meetings and going from house to house.
The couple was attending the closing of Indashyikirwa project in Kigali, Tuesday. Both are now community counsellors under the project which reached 83,535 direct beneficiaries, women representing 55%, in seven districts around the country over the last four years. The activists shared lessons with around 1.3 million in the areas.
{{Call for project expansion
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Speaking at the ceremony, Minister for Gender and Family Promotion, Espérance Nyirasafari, said Indashyikirwa project has been instrumental in fighting GBV in the communities it operated.
She said she witnessed the change in Musanze District during her recent visit.
“Government is committed to building on these achievements. I ask partners in this area to closely work with us to expand this to other parts of the country. If we scale up this in other parts, GBV will be eradicated in few years.”
Indashyikirwa project operated 14 sectors in seven districts from September 2014 to August 2018. The districts are Bugesera, Kayonza, Rwamagana, Burera, Musanze, Nyabihu and Rubavu.
Marie Immaculée Ingabire, a human rights activist and Chairperson of Transparency International Rwanda, cautioned that the project’s achievements would go to waste in a few years if they are not sustained.
“GBV is a crime, it should be reported and fought hard but I’m worried for tomorrow in the same areas where this project has been implemented. I know a lot of work has been done there but wait a year after the project has ended, when nobody is following up on what’s happening there, it will be like nothing was done.”
Funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) under the coordination of Care International, Indashyikirwa project was implemented by Rwanda Women’s Network (RWN) and Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre (RWAMREC).
Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care are interventions provided to pregnant women and newborns experiencing fatal complications, including severe bleeding, infection, prolonged or obstructed labor, eclampsia, and asphyxia in the newborn.
The trainings that were held from Monday were provided through a partnership between the Ministry of Health, Rotary Clubs of Williamsburg and Kigali-Gasabo and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
The program educated the selected healthcare workers to manage complications in women and newborns, as well as responding to these medical emergencies in their own health facilities and communities.
Marie-Rose Habihirwe, a healthcare worker, welcomed the initiative, saying that the trainings increased their knowledge in treating well patients.
An employee from the health Ministry’s department of Emergency Medical Assistance Service (SAMU), Jean Marie Uwitonze appreciated the government’s efforts in providing healthcare workers with necessary resources to excel.
“Over time, a lot has been done such as new ambulances and other needed resources that the government purchased. Although there are still some challenges that we meet in our department, this milestone is very commendable.” Uwitonze said
Speaking to the press, Dr. Sudha Jayaraman who is an Associate Professor of Surgery in Virginia Commonwealth University, USA, lauded the initiative and expressed the team’s commitment in supporting the trainings.
“I started to collaborate in 2011 with colleagues from CHUK. I realize that there is an important part of the health system with SAMU, which has been really supported by the Ministry of Health. This is very rare in most places. We realize that and we are committed to work together to support them.” Dr. Jayaraman said
“For the last decade the SAMU team has grown tremendously in terms of staffing, capital investment. Where they need support is actually in the training in the latest best practices for emergency care. In order to bring them there, we have created these short courses, with skills that helped them to try out. They are eager to learn and perform; they are ready to manage everything.” He added
Commenting on the move, Rotary Club District 9150 ADG, Jeanette Rugera who was a doctor in Italy for 19 years, said that Healthcare was a pillar in the development of a nation.
“This is an important initiative, because it focuses on upgrading lives of Rwandans. It is also a great educational medium on Emergency medical services and we hope that it will better these services in our country.” Rugera said
The AUEOM, led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Niger, Aichatou Mindaoudou Souleymane, is comprised of thirty Short-term observers and has been deployed since 27th August up to 08th September 2018.
“The objectives of the mission are to provide an accurate and impartial reporting or assessment of the quality of the Parliamentary Elections, including the degree to which the conduct of the elections meets regional, continental and international standards”, reads a statement from the African Union Commission.
The mission will also offer recommendations for improvement of future elections based on its observation and findings; and demonstrate African Union’s commitment to support Rwanda’s democratization process to ensure that the election contributes to the consolidation of democratic governance, peace and stability.
The AUEOM draws its mandate from various African Union instruments, including the African Union Guidelines for Electoral Observation and Monitoring Missions; the OUA/AU Declaration on Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa; African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, among others.
NEC invited several election observer groups and expects between 300 to 400 foreign observers and 2000 local observers.
The observers include delegations from regional electoral commissions, regional inter-governmental organizations, civil society and others from Embassies represented in Rwanda.
Parliamentary campaigns officially started on August 13 and will end on September 1.
Speaking during the closing ceremony, the Rwanda Defense Force Army Chief of Staff, Jacques Musemakweli lauded the participants who uncompromisingly worked hand-in-hand for the last two weeks to make the exercise a success, adding that the exercise enriched participants’ capacity to plan, implement and evaluate their future tasks as protectors of civilians in Peace Support Operations.
“Rwanda particularly recognizes the value and potential impact of this particular exercise and future similar ones and is honored to support the task of training and preparing forces to deploy on peacekeeping missions. Rwanda and RDF in particular, remain committed to support world peace and security whenever required,” said Lt Gen Musemakweli.
Brigadier Gen. Lapthe C. Flora, the Co-Exercise Director and US Army Africa Deputy Commander, thanked RDF for hosting the exercise, adding that exercises like SA18 not only contribute to improving participants’ peacekeeping skills, but also provide a valuable opportunity to work together while creating professional relationships, and more importantly fostering a lasting friendship.
“We arrived from 15 different countries from three continents with one goal in mind – to learn. We’ve learned how to take on an order, analyze it, develop a plan, and execute. More importantly, we’ve learned how to successfully operate as a combined-joint Task Force under one umbrella,” said Brig. Gen Flora.
Among the dignitaries present at the closing event, was the US Ambassador to Rwanda, Peter Vrooman, who emphasized that working together in such an exercise helps to create something new that couldn’t be learnt in books, especially on the protection of civilians as one of the army’s tasks.
The exercise comprised of three phases that included the academic phase aimed at enhancing participants’ understanding of the UN system and conduct of the peace operations, the Military Component Planning Process (MCPP) and the command post exercise based on the selected course of action and with more than 100 scenarios exercised.
