Bugesera excels in youth projects

The National Youth Council (NYC) Friday recognized Bugesera District for its outstanding performance in enabling youth to implement projects about performance contracts signed last year.The district scored 96.97 percent from 9 projects that were fully implemented out of 11 signed in the performance contract. The remaining two were half-way implemented, according to the report from the NYC inspection team.Jean Claude Gahigi, the youth coordinator of the district, said the success of the youth was triggered by both district authorities and youth mobilisation.“The district has been committed by not only supporting us financially, but also checking or inspecting our activities which led to combined efforts of involving youth at every level,” said Gahigi.He also explained that the secret behind their success was encouraging youth to join cooperatives so as to start income generating activities which he said, was in line with fighting unemployment.Other districts recognized were Rwamagana and Musanze which took-up the second and third positions respectively.Nyagatare District in the Eastern Province was last while Huye and Kirehe district were second and third last respectively.The last district (Nyagatare) scored 36.01 percent with only 2 projects fully implemented. According to the performance contracts signed, 14 projects were meant to be implemented. Records indicated that 9 of the 14 were implemented half-way.Alex Musoni, Nyagatare district youth representative, told Sunday Times that the district has not supported the youth like in other better performing districts.“The district only supported in sports activities and very few training programmes; meaning that even the only budget we used was from the Ministry of Youth and ICT,” Musoni said.Also raised during the event was unequal distribution of funds for youth development projects. Musoni said last year’s budget was Rwf 10 million and called on the district authorities to include youth initiatives or programmes on the district priorities. Some participants also expressed concern over what they termed as ‘unsatisfying’ inspection and grading of the district`s performance. The National Youth Coordinator, Philbert Uwiringiyimana, promised that the exercise will be annual and that any irregularities cited will be addressed.“This is the first time we have carried out this exercise and we are convinced each other step taken will be aiming at making it even better,” he said.He called on the youth to work together in making sure that they can over-ride challenges that might be affecting their progress and project implementation.During the event, districts representatives signed performance contracts for the year 2012-2013.