Social Welfare is one of the key pillars on which RPF-INKOTANYI is built and where all the efforts are mostly put to ensure the quality of life of a Rwandan citizen significantly improves.

Owing to what our country went through for decades, the RPF-INKONTANYI, set out to ensure that without any form of prejudice, (characteristic of all successive governments) all Rwandans would be facilitated to have a chance at a good life.

Welfare of citizens:

This is the main indicator of a country’s development. That is why RPF-INKOTANYI committed itself to ensuring that Rwandans do not lead a life of want but providing equal opportunities for all, uplifting vulnerable groups, inculcating in them the culture of saving, land reform, settlement and environmental protection among others.

Health

As the adage goes, a heathy nation is a wealthy one. This is why RPF-Inkotanyi puts a key emphasis on ensuring that all the citizens are in position to get quality healthcare wherever they can be within the country.

To make Rwandans attain a healthy livelihood some programmes have been embarked on including; health awareness, family planning, good nutrition and hygiene in general.

Availing or building new hospitals and renovating the old ones as well as giving them more and better equipment; increase in the number of qualified and medical practitioners (doctors, pharmacists and nurses etc).

To make the health services easily accessible and affordable, RPF INKOTANYI championed an innovative Mutuelle de Sante, the Community Based Health Insurance (CHBI) that has ensured millions of Rwandans get affordable healthcare.

 

Women empowerment

Women are currently the majority of the country’s population. This is a very important section of the population and RPF INKOTANYI saw it fit to depart from the modus operandi by the previous governments, and instead put the women at the forefront of the country’s development.

This was evident right from the liberation struggle and in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, where women were at the forefront both on the political, economic and political landscapes, and this has paid enormous dividends.

Education

RPF INKOTANYI committed to continue promoting an education system characterized by quality teaching and promotion of Rwandan values, the culture of peace, the respect of human rights and patriotism.

We also committed to continue paying attention to the teaching of sciences, technology and crafts with special emphasis on the fact that those who complete them can become self-employed and add value to what they do, either on the Rwandan or international markets.

Special emphasis has been put on ensuring that all Rwandan young get out of school with employable skills across sectors, and this is why focus was put on vocational skills, where hands-on skills are imparted on Rwandan youths and help them with all the necessary tools to ensure the knowledge acquired is put into practice and makes an impact on their respective communities.

Employment

To ensure that Rwandans with varied skills have access to employment, the RPF INKOTANYI saw it fit to champion different programmes that Rwandans with different qualifications have access to jobs.

Under RPF INKOTANYI, Rwanda sought to join different regional economic integration blocs to broaden the market for Rwandan products, including human capital. Like never before, Rwandans with the requisite skills are able to compete for jobs within the region under different frameworks like the East African Community.

Apart from this, Rwanda has over the past two decades championed initiatives geared at ensuring citizens, besides getting the necessary skills, are able to get employment and to give this context is the current target of creating at least 200,000 off-farm jobs per year.

Such ambitious targets will be delivered by equally ambitious initiatives like Hang’Umurimo which mainly targets the youth who are helped to acquire capital to initiate their income generating projects.

 

Social protection

The RPF has set out to ensure that the needy are catered for and get opportunities to live like other Rwandans and, where possible, given earn a living for themselves, consequently weaning them off aid.

Creating a legal framework that protects the needy like the elderly, those with disabilities and those with different categories of vulnerability like survivors of the Genocide and ex-combatants, among others.

These have also benefitted from different social protection programmes and most of them are now contributing actively in the development of the nation.

Such initiatives include the social stratification programme Ubudehe, Vision Umurenge Programme (VUP), Gir’Inka (which has enabled hundreds of thousands of families to get cows that have not only provided milk but also manure for their farms.

Culture

RPF INKOTANYI continues to give value to the Rwandan culture on the basis of its own virtues and making it the pillar of development, setting up a national academy of Language and Culture and Preparation of a law - establishing the duties, nature and functions of the national academy of language and culture.

The culture has also continued to remain at the centre of the development of this country where, traditional practices were reintroduced to solve different social and governance problems faced.

An example of this is the highly successful Gacaca courts which made global headlines when they tried over a million cases related to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, a process that would have taken hundreds of years under the conventional legal system, which was not practical.

Besides disposing off the heavy backlog of cases, Gacaca courts achieved what the ordinary courts would not have achieved- reconciliation between the survivors and perpetrators.

Other homegrown initiatives that have been central in Rwanda’s development include Umwiherero, Umushyikirano, Umuganura (National Harvest Day) among others.

 

Recreational activities

To continue providing Rwandans with means of participating in sports, so that they can be healthy and enjoy leisurely activities, either in the country or in international games and sports.

To encourage Government to build international and medium-size stadia in towns and districts all over the country, which will not only help hoist Rwanda’s flag on the international arena, but also ensure that more Rwandans participate in sport for good health and avoid lifestyle diseases.

 

Proper settlement

The RPF INKOTANYI’s stand is to continue helping Rwandans to build good houses and settle in good areas where they will easily access public amenities like clean water, electricity, roads, hospitals and schools.

The review of the settlement policy in Rwanda and establishment of the national policy for settlement in units/imidugudu is also something we prioritise.

Follow-up of the implementation of the settlement policy in Rwanda and setting up of an easy mechanism to find uncostly but good construction materials to encourage investors to build low-cost accommodation structures.