Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to assess the contribution of good governance in Rwanda, a comparison of government strategies on community development of the 1980’s and 2020’s. The specific objectives of this work were to ascertain the components of Good Governance in Ruhango District; to assess the impact of good governance on community development of 1980’s and 2020’s and to identify the barriers that affect Good Governance in Ruhango District. The comparative study adopted the quantitative research methodology employing a cross sectional research design which dealt with numeric-based, large quantity of data, surveys, questionnaires, and structured quantifiable data and based on hard data. Results of this work were mainly based on the data collected by questionnaires and the total population of this study is estimated at 319 885 people in Ruhango district from which a sample of 96 respondents was drawn by using random sampling technique. Data analysis was based on descriptive study and the researcher tabulated the responses. The findings of the study revealed that Good Governance of 2020s has contributed to the community development in Ruhango District with the indicators of development like construction of schools, hospitals, road, water sanitation, modern markets, small projects and modern agriculture rather than governance of 1980’s where those indicators were ranked on low level. After doing a deep analysis on comparison of governance strategies of 1980’s and in the 2020’s via the respondents’ views, the research findings conclude that there was a clear difference. Therefore, community development was also at different level. For these reasons, the researcher suggests that the government should reconsider the 30% quota for women in political leadership and decision-making based in their competencies. Government should continue to facilitating a meaningful dialogue between government and the civil society and the people especially through the Open Government Initiative (OGI) address critical national issues.
