Kigali - 9 February 2010

A Memorandum of Understanding on the implementation of the Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD) programme in Rwanda was signed in Kigali on 8 February. The programme aims to improve women's access to resources and services at the local level through gender-responsive planning and budgeting. It is implemented in five African countries – Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tanzania – with funding from the Belgian Government, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and UNIFEM.

In Rwanda, the GELD programme will run until August 2012. The MoU was signed by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, John Rwangombwa, UN Resident Coordinator Aurélien Agbénonci on behalf of UNCDF, and UNIFEM representative Rose Rwabuhihi.

"Women and girls will be particularly affected by the potential social and economic consequences of the financial crisis, such as unemployment, increasing responsibilities both at work and at home, and decreasing income. This programme therefore aims to ensure equitable economic development by identifying strategies and mechanisms for improving women's access to resources and services at the local level, through gender-sensitive planning, programming and budgeting," Resident Coordinator Agbénonci said at the ceremony.

The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning hailed the partnership between the Ministry and the UN system. “This programme will strengthen the interventions of the existing gender-responsive budgeting programme established in 2008 with support from UNIFEM,” said Mr. Rwangombwa. He further emphasized that gender was well entrenched in government policy as a major issue for development and welcomed the GELD programme as a main catalyst for accountability at the local level.

“GELD is an important supplement to the ongoing efforts between UNIFEM and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to mainstream gender in budgeting processes across all sectors. UNIFEM is enthusiastic to strengthen mechanisms of accountability and performance contracts (Imihigo), to deliver for gender equality and women's empowerment at decentralized level,” said Rose Rwabuhihi, UNIFEM Central Africa Regional Officer in Charge.

The programme will serve to generate empirical data on gender-equitable local development that can be used to develop a model for replication and up-scaling. While the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) and UNCDF are the implementing and executing partners in Rwanda, other strategic partners are the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC), the Common Development Fund (CDF), the National Decentralization Implementation Secretariat (NDIS), the Rwandan Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA), UNDP and UNIFEM.

For more information, contact Barbara Albrecht, Programme Analyst, UNIFEM Central Africa Regional Office, barbara.albrecht[at]unifem.org or John Mutamba, Gender Specialist, UNIFEM Central Africa Regional Office, john.mutamba[at]unifem.org.

UN Resident Coordinator Aurélien Agbénonci, UNIFEM Central Africa Regional Officer in Charge Rose Rwabuhihi, and Minister of Finance and Economic Planning John Rwangombwa, at the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding on the implementation of the Gender Equitable Local Development Programme (GELD), Kigali, Rwanda, 8 February 2010. (Photo: New Times/Edmund Kagire.)