Imihigo is a tradition that Rwanda has institutionalized as a means to enhance local government reform and stimulate development. It draws on a long-standing cultural practice in Rwanda whereby two parties publicly commit themselves to the achievement of a particular task. Failing to meet these public commitments leads to dishonour, not only for the individual party but for the community.
Following local governance reforms and the 2006 elections, Rwanda's Ministry for Local Administration (MINALOC) and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning consulted with district leaders on an action plan for better service to community members. This action plan included contracts holding the President of Rwanda and the district leaders accountable for the goals that had been decided. These contracts were called Imihigo in the tradition of this established cultural practice. Since 2006, Imihigo have been signed at the local government level with district, sector, cell, and umudugudu (village) officials (2007), as well as at the household level (2008), and will be signed at the individual level (planned for 2009).
The signed contract between the head of household and local leaders includes baseline data for the district, district development targets, performance indicators, and the budgetary allocation for the achievement of each target. Imihigo evaluations are carried out three times a year by a task force comprising the Prime Minister's Office, MINALOC and the President's Office. Each district presents its evaluation findings to the task force in the presence of stakeholders.
Obligations under Imihigo are reciprocal between signatories. District leaders, for example, are obligated to work with their constituents toward the achievement of national development priorities over the course of a year, and the President is committed to supporting districts with the requisite financial, technical and human resources to facilitate the achievement of these goals.
Recently, accountability for addressing gender-based violence (GBV) has been included in household surveys against which district leadership are to be evaluated. This signals a widespread commitment to prevent violence again women in a very explicit form. As one District Mayor explained, "We included the fight against gender-based violence in our performance contracts because security organizations showed us important statistics about the problem of GBV in our area […] Imihigo is a response to the problems in our community."
Imihigo is both a rights-based planning tool, as well as a social contract between parties. As a MINALOC official recently summed up , "The overall aim of Community Dialogue is to increase the level of concern in community about the issues that affect them and to catalyze actions that improve their standards of living."
