Imihigo is a Rwandan tradition initiative that was recapped by the local governments as one of the traditional heroic practice to address a problem of performance management in the decentralised entities of Rwanda. It should be explained that Imihigo means challenging oneself. It is the public visioning of what you intend to do, to achieve, to realise in your personal life or in your professional function. Doing Imihigo, again in the days before colonisation, meant that you committed yourself to objectives and that you would strive to achieve them because not achieving those objectives would cause you dishonour. Imihigo was practiced as a way to set objectives and maintain incentives among the people. At the time of the Mwami (King), doing Imihigo and not achieving the objectives could lead people to commit suicide rather than suffer dishonour. The present government by asking the Districts and Sectors to do Imihigo is enabling the people and the District leaders to work together in the pursuit of common goals that they establish themselves. The competition among units that this exercise represents also leads to beneficial results.
The Imihigo came up in the local government officials’ retreat on decentralised management and service delivery which was held shortly after administrative and local government reform and elections of 2006. At the closing of the retreat presided over by the President of the Republic of Rwanda, in his remarks following the presentation of the participants, urged the local government officials to commit themselves more than rhetoric words, which subsequently led to the Imihigo initiative.
Before this initiative, managers and other stakeholders in local governments would work tirelessly day and night but at the end of it all there were no tangible results realised because they were doing a lot at the same time without a well established plan of action, with no or limited people ownership and commitment. With no common goal there was no focus or priority set of objectives, nor were there serious dialogue on key community problems and concerns
Local government officials were engaged in doing and doing! Monitoring and evaluation of activities was a concept unheard of. In other words, implementation was without reflection of what has resulted from a particular activity and the impact it has had to the beneficiaries.
Local government officials were entangled in administrative issues. They would spend a big percentage of their time (85%) listening and dealing with the problems and concerns of the community. This hindered the officials from planning and implementing developmental activities and leaving the local governments and their people in continuous and life long poverty. More to that even where they had district development plans for five years they remained smart on paper and in shelves, even the district officials did not know what is in those plans leave alone translating them into annual plans.
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