An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University Oral History Program Series: Civil Service Interview no.: S9 Interviewee: Fred Mufulukye Interviewer: Daniel Scher Date of Interview: 27 May 2010 Location: Kigali Rwanda Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties SCHER: My name is Daniel Scher and I'm the associate director of the Innovations for Successful Societies project, and I'm here with Fred Mufulukye in Kigali, Rwanda, on May 27, 2010. Thank you very much for taking time out to meet with me. I'm very interested to learn more about your work, and hopefully I'll be able to ask all the right questions. If you find I'm not asking the right questions, please feel free to tell me what you think the important parts of your work are. MUFULUKYE: Thank you. SCHER: Before we begin, I wonder if you could just quickly introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about the positions you held prior to this one, and then just explain how your role fits in with the imihigo process. MUFULUKYE: Thank you very much, Daniel. I am called Mufulukye, Fred. I am director general in charge of territorial administration and governance in the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC). I have worked with the Ministry of Local Government since 2004, and I have held different positions in that ministry. I started as a general staff. I was promoted to the director, and then I also worked as personal assistant to the minister of local government. Then I had time to go for further studies, and when I came back to the ministry, I was also given another position as director of good governance in the territorial administration, and then today I am the director general in the ministry of local government still, and I am in charge of the territorial administration. My position and how it is linked with the imihigo process, I want to tell you that territorial administration and governance are very much linked with imihigo. Imihigo-I don't know if you were able to understand what the concept means, This is cultural based performance approach that was initiated out of the concern of top leadership of the country about the rate and quality of execution of government programs, this concept was initiated in 2006 when we started the second phase of decentralization in Rwanda. So what happened at that time, we had territorial administrative reform and elections of local leaders, . We had territorial administrative reform from 2005 to 2006. Then in March 2006 that's when we had elections of local leaders. During that time, the local leaders, during their swearing-in ceremony, which was officiated by the president of the republic., we had, at first, restructured administrative entities. We had 106 districts, but then we narrowed them down, to 30 districts. So when we reduced them to 30 districts, the central point was, how can we really have effective local governments? How can we have effective local government? How can they deliver quality services? How can they develop local governments? So we wanted local governments that are developing, local governments that deliver quality services. That's why we had to restructure our administrative entities and align them with our vision that we had for our community. So at that time, the president asked everybody that now at least you have achieved everything we wanted. We wanted to restructure our administrative entities, and we did achieve it. We even have competent leaders-the people who were elected at that time. In fact, before, we used it to have people who were not graduates serving in the public in local government. Then during that time, I mean in 2006, we had to change the laws and make sure that whoever is coming to the local government is highly qualified. SCHER: How did you find those people who were highly qualified to fill these positions? MUFULUKYE: What we do, we just put the criteria and then we let people compete. Those who met the criteria, they compete. SCHER: And the criteria were university degrees? MUFULUKYE: Yes, that was the criteria. To be a public servant, that is a criterion. To serve in the district required a strong technician, you really needed to have qualifications. So we had to set some minimal level of qualification,. So at that time we had competent staff. We had-and even these people were somehow, according to the salary structure at that time, when we were structured. Before there was a big difference between central-government and local-government pay. But we had to streamline the difference and make sure that all people-I mean to create an incentive that somebody would not feel to go to Kigali (to work from the capital) when that person can also go to local government, just in the rural area. After all, they get the same thing. SCHER: So did you raise salaries? MUFULUKYE: We raised salaries. SCHER: You didn't bring-? MUFULUKYE: No, no, we raised the salaries for local government officials. So it looked, everything was perfect then. Now the president was really posed the question that what is remaining now? It is restructuring local government? We've done everything. We are ready, we have competent people based on the criteria set. What is remaining? So it was really a challenge to everybody. We had to say we really need quality services, we need development, we need improved social welfare,. He highlighted different issues. So he said, I really need to see you people achieving that. He just proposed that, just call me next time. Call me when you want to show me what you want to achieve. I want you people to show me how are you going to achieve, what are you going to achieve, what transformation are you going to make in local governments. So that's how the concept of imihigo was formed. This is a traditional approach where formerly our ancestors during that time in the Rwandan history, chiefs used to have imihigo with the king.. What they did, they could tell the king that this is what we are going to achieve for this particular area in a particular period. So they could commit themselves to achieving particular things document- a binding commitment. Whoever failed to achieve his or her target could really feel as if he is not a performer, could feel ashamed, could feel disappointed. So always people were working very hard to achieve what they had promised the king. They called it imihigo at that time. So we said now, why don't we try to translate our tradition into current environment. Why can't we borrow our history and see if there are some issues we have to incorporate in present time and see if they can really work. So that's how the concept of imihigo came about, we said, it is as if we were going to sign a contract with the president. If you understand the accountability principle, of course the president is accountable to the citizens. Really the president must be-for him, the president is not going to work everything; it is the leaders now who should be given the guidelines, by top leadership and for them to deliver what the president really promised the citizens. So it is as if the president had a contract with the people who elected him. Now for the president to be able to achieve his promise/contract, these leaders should be helping him to achieve that one. So that is the philosophy. So that is how even signing performance contract started. SCHER: So can I ask a logistical question then? I've heard the imihigo concept now and you've mentioned it here, too, where President (Paul) Kagame really challenges the district mayors and said, come back to me in six months and tell me what you've done. But how do you go from that sort of challenge-of the president putting out there-to developing a pretty complicated and sophisticated system of imihigo and performance-contract management? I mean what was the, it uses the intermediate-[interruption] MUFULUKYE: Could you please repeat that question? SCHER: Sure, this is part two of the interview. I was just saying, who were the people responsible for actually developing the imihigo strategy as it now exists? As you said, sort of translating it from the traditional to the modern public service. MUFULUKYE: It is the Ministry of Local Government. After president's briefing with the mayors, we sat down in the Ministry of Local Government, then even with the mayors, and we said, how do we move forward? In fact, even the president had highlighted about imihigo in his speech. SCHER: Was he the first person to use imihigo? MUFULUKYE: Yes, he talks about imihigo in the broad perspective. He said you have really to be committed and show me that you are committed. I want to see your commitment happen. So that's how people had to think. So now people started thinking about that. Then we said, now the president wants us to perform-how do we then move forward? So that's how people started thinking about the time frame, thinking about developing a concept of a guiding document, thinking about the whole methodology, how everything can be done. So we had to sit and we asked we have to go back and show the transformation the President wants, we have to show him the transformation he wants to see. Then how we're going to do that is just to have everything really committing us, telling him what we are going to achieve. So at that time we asked local government to go and consider the resources they have, consider the local problems they encounter, consider local issues that they want to have resolved and consider everything, and let them work with different partners to see, to define this is what we have and this is what we want to achieve this year. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: OK? So then, of course it had just started. I can't say we were very smart in it, but it started, you were seeing people had different activities, activities relating to agriculture, targeting agriculture development, targeting industry development, targeting social-welfare development, targeting different sectors. So now we give them the guidelines. We told them you have to see, we had four pillars. At that time, we had governance, we had justice, we had economy, and then social welfare pillars. So we told them that, based on these four pillars, then develop what do you want to achieve in governance? What do you have to achieve in justice? What do you want to achieve in social welfare, and what do you want to achieve in economic development? So they had to define different activities they wanted to achieve in each pillar in that particular time. So now our department was directly linked with that, especially in designing how the whole process can be done. SCHER: And your department being territorial administration? MUFULUKYE: Yes. SCHER: So that's the main department. MUFULUKYE: Yes. SCHER: So what I wanted to ask you is even if you have as you say very competent people, university graduates, drawing up an annual plan that fits into the five-year district development plan that also fits into the national strategies you have running, Vision 20/20, the EDPRS (Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy), the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and then this plan also has to respond to the needs on the ground of local citizens. It seems to me that that is a very difficult thing to do. How do you ensure that the mayors are drawing up realistic plans with achievable goals? MUFULUKYE: First of all we tell them that we should differentiate imihigo and action plans. Imihigo didn't take away action plans. We told them that action plans are just a set of activities supposed to be realized within a determined period. SCHER: So this action plan is the one-year plan. MUFULUKYE: These are annual plans. But the imihigo are just a subset of the action plan showing priority activities to be used as performance measures. Priority activities based upon the action plan you have. What are the priorities? Action plans are developed from district development plans and these district development plans are prepared the same way-they are prepared based on the national priorities, national programs, national priorities. So we told them that this should be different. We said action plans can bring in activities that are routine in nature, like payment of wages, payment of salaries, like preparing action plans, preparing annual budgets. Those are just the routines that we find, but those are not the issues we want to see in imihigo. We said in imihigo the focus is on activities that have a significant impact on the social welfare, on good governance, on economic development and poverty reduction. So we just tell them based on that one, based on the resources you have, based on the budget you have, what do you think are the priorities in social? What should be your priority in economic development, etc? So they just focus on priority issues. How do they do that? We tell them to prepare Imihigo at the same time with the action plan. The technicians prepare, but they have to do it with different actors at local-government level. SCHER: I'm sorry, who are the technicians? MUFULUKYE: The technicians? The technocrats. SCHER: At the local government level? MUFULUKYE: In local government, yes, or district level. So they prepare. Then the present them to the mayors - the executive. Then the executive has to give them to the district council, and then district council has to look at all those priorities. You know, the district council is composed of councilors from different areas. So the councilors have to look at those imihigo and see if really these imihigo concentrate or focus on significant issues that would create impact on their respective areas. SCHER: OK. MUFULUKYE: Maybe that is a priority. They can say. Now for instance the last time we had to construct classrooms for nine-year basic education [Indecipherable]. That one couldn't work out without imihigo and what is important is the spirit of competition. Competition, you always want to compete. SCHER: The districts? MUFULUKYE: The districts. Because at the end of the day, , we evaluate the best-performing districts, and these districts are awarded by the president. So they always, but they always want to be the best and that one has created something that drives them. Because they know they have been ranked the best-performing district. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: So what we have seen today, this imihigo creates a competitive spirit, and districts want to compete. But not only that, it has inspired self-esteem. When you see local leaders and citiznes, I think if you get time you shall go there, you will see even the citizens, the community, they want to show you they achieved activity X. This is fantastic. Then another thing, it creates community participation because we tell them before you sign, you know imihigo, maybe something I forgot to tell you. Imihigo are signed at all levels, at local government level. We have village, below a village there is a cell and then a sector and a district. So all those levels as they go up to the to the village level. They also sign the contract. So for you, Daniel, we just ask you at the village level what do you want to achieve this year and put it in writing. Then you go to the village head, the head of the village and say, this year my target is maybe to buy a radio. You can say that. SCHER: You can say personal goals? MUFULUKYE: Yes, personal goals at the village level. They are personal goals at the village level. There are community goals. First of all, there are goals individuals make at the village level. That's at household level. They make commitments at household level. So they ask you what you want to achieve. So the head of the family has a number of activities. There we haven't yet worked it out very well. Some areas, it is perfect; other areas, it hasn't worked well. But where it is working well you will always see security, you will always see improvement, you will always see social transformation-where it is working well. So that one creates community participation. SCHER: OK, this is helpful for me because I hadn't quite understood this. I had read about the imihigo being signed at sector level and cell level and household level, but what I was wondering, those imihigo don't have to fit in with the district level imihigo, right? They don't have to be aligned with what the district-? MUFULUKYE: Those are the challenges of planning. And that is what we have been presenting to them today. We told them, we really have to align all these documents - imihigo and action plans. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: Because we tell them the districts, there are few activities they implement themselves, for them to be able to see the real transformation. Now, for instance, when you talk about environment protection, who is going to protect the environment? Who is going to plant the trees? Just the citizens. SCHER: The individuals. MUFULUKYE: So the individuals. If the individuals are not committed to that, and the mayor signs the contract, that means he will find it hard to implement that one. So that's why we say these activities, commitments, have to come from lower level and then have these people committed. It starts from lower levels and it goes up. SCHER: I guess it doesn't make sense if the mayor is committing to environmental protection but at the household level they're saying they want to buy a radio. MUFULUKYE: It will mean nothing. SCHER: You need to get them together. MUFULUKYE: Yes, you need to link them. That's how we did it. Then something interesting is about commitment. Now the creation of targets to the president-the creation, when you declare your target to the president, or to the leader of a certain entity-creates stronger commitment in the contractee. If I am the contractee today and I tell my minister this is what I want to achieve and I know the minister has put it there and I know I will be evaluated after a particular period of time. I tell you it will be really fantastic, I have to work very hard to reach my objective. Otherwise, I would be disappointed and disappointing my leader when I don't achieve what I promised to them. SCHER: Can I just go back on this note. So you said the technocrats prepare the imihigo, they present it to the mayors. The mayors show it to the district council. MUFULUKYE: Yes, the district council. SCHER: And then? MUFULUKYE: Then the district council approves, them. They can even change them. They say these are not the priorities. So after the district council approves the imihigo, so now the mayor takes that whole document, submits the whole document to the Ministry of Local Government and then-. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: Then we submit them to the president's office for approval. Not in fact for signing the contract. So the president in his schedule knows that in during the course of the year he has to sign the contract with the mayors and we also to evaluate them. SCHER: Now can it be changed at MINALOC. So if you get something from the mayor and you look at it and you think this doesn't look right, can you send it back to them? MUFULUKYE: No. What we do is to analyse and advise on targets or where imihigo is not Smart, or not implementable . So we could, they could even see they were not Smart. But what is done is to set up quality-assurance team at all levels. We asked them to have a quality-assurance team at district level. But this is informal. It doesn't have to be an administrative structure or an organ, SCHER: But it is at local level. MUFULUKYE: At local and at national levels. SCHER: So the quality assurance-is this the quality assurance technical team? MUFULUKYE: Yes, quality- assurance technical team. SCHER: So can you explain to me how they work? MUFULUKYE: The quality-assurance technical team, this one has not been in place. We said, you know what we've been doing before signing the contract, we normally had central and local government meeting. Then local government would present their Imihigo while central government would comment if districts commitments are aligned with the national priorities, programs and policies? So then we would give them comments. But still considering if we want to be fair and smart, we feel that exercise should be done before the approval of the budget. SCHER: OK. MUFULUKYE: OK, that's now what we've decided to do. So now what we are doing today, we have set up a quality-assurance team composed of officials/technicians from ministry of local government, ministry of finance, prime minister's office - key institutions involved. We can even request for some people from Rwanda Governance Advisory Council and decentralization Secretariat. So what we do, we just want to see are their priorities smart? That's the central issue, to see if they're smart, if indicators are smart, if baselines are smart. That's all. Because you see, these commitments will have to be evaluated and we evaluate what is really smart. So that's what the quality-assurance team does today. we established that team from those institutions to guide ditricts imihigo." If targets are not realistic you can't achieve them. Then we give comments. Then when we give comments they just go back and incorporate comments made. We give comments before the district council approves imihigo document. SCHER: You're coming in earlier. MUFULUKYE: If the document is approved by the district council, we can't do anything. SCHER: Oh. MUFULUKYE: Yes, we can't do anything. So we have to work on it between the technicians. So if it has been approved by the district council, we don't do anything. SCHER: Why don't you do anything? MUFULUKYE: We don't do anything because the district council is an autonomous body that has to take all the [Indecipherable]. So our comments or input, we have to provide them before the district council approves the document. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: But we do that just as interaction. It is just an interaction; we just help them. We tell them here the target is big, or there your target may weak depending on EDPRS and MDGs targets. it seems here you are going down and then, see, if can you try to move up and have clear indicators. Then we just work on such technical issues. We don't have anything to do with their commitment. We just provide technical assistance. SCHER: So is there one technical team that works with all the districts, or are there a number of quality assurance teams? MUFULUKYE: Now, the meeting we had today, the districts decided also to have their quality-assurance committees. SCHER: Their own teams. MUFULUKYE: Yes. They are saying they are going to consult their different partners through joint-action development forum, a forum at district level that brings together district with private sector, civil society organizations operating in that district. So that one can get strong technicians or NGOs (nongovernment organizations) working there or private sector or civil-society organizations.. So now, what they have to do, they can get people from these organizations and constitute a technical team to draft imihigo document, when the document is smart, then they give it to the mayors. For us - we have to look at the targets and see if they are really smart and what they want to do is in line with national and international targets and priorities. SCHER: I see. So was that a suggestion that came from the districts themselves, that this is how they would like to handle-? MUFULUKYE: Yes, everything comes from the districts. For us, we just give them guidelines - go and prepare based on the three pillars.. We only have three pillars-governance, social welfare and economic develop. We give them guidelines. If you can see this one, this is the planning template. This is under economic-development pillar, what is the objective, what is your output, what is your indicator, what is your baseline, what is your target, what about the time frame to achieve the target and then means of verification and then the cost-watch the costs. SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: We give the guidelines and then what we do is just to check if really their commitments are aligned with national priorities and national policies. SCHER: So let me ask you something: The mayors themselves are still the ones who are ultimately responsible in many ways. Like they're the ones who are signing the contracts with the president, correct? MUFULUKYE: Yes. SCHER: But they can present something and then the district development council can change it, right? MUFULUKYE: No, no. SCHER: The district council can say, I don't think that's quite right? MUFULUKYE: Can I answer? SCHER: Sure. This is part three of the interview. I was asking a question, but I think there's something I'm a little more interested in. You're getting a lot of information coming in about goals that are being met and targets that are being achieved and perhaps targets that aren't being achieved. How do the local citizenry get this information? How do you convey whether the districts, their districts are doing well or not? MUFULUKYE: First of all during the signing-[interruption] SCHER: This is part four of the interview. We were just talking about how citizens get information about the performance of their districts. MUFULUKYE: First of all, how this one is done? We tell them they have to prepare the report. SCHER: The mayors? MUFULUKYE: The district/mayors. They have to prepare the report, what they have achieved. Preparing the report has to follow the same procedure as they prepared imihigo. Are you understanding it? SCHER: In terms of consultation? MUFULUKYE: In terms of consultation, in terms of presentation of the report. We see the district council also has to prepare the report that they are going to submit on what they achieved. SCHER: OK. MUFULUKYE: the district council in that way, these are councilors. They know what they achieved. They know if they constructed a bridge; they know if the bridge is there or not. The mayor presents a report to the district council, then the district council based on the knowledge they have approve or alter the document before it is presented to the central government. They have-they need to have their report presented to the council. the councilors represent the citizens or the community, that's one thing, secondly they present to the respective organs thay represent. Secondly, the Imihigo signing ceremony and reporting is always public. So the mayor-it is always public, it is always broadcasted, it is always live on radio and TV. So you see? SCHER: I see. MUFULUKYE: So we give a mayor of a certain district, before the president, to present/report what was achieved. This is what we had planned, this is what we achieved. In that way, the citizen would even say, what you're saying is not true. They make calls - free to call and report or appreciate or criticize what their leaders are saying. SCHER: Who can they call? MUFULUKYE: We always have a public, a free call line, it is always free to call and report SCHER: Yes? MUFULUKYE: Yes, there is a free call line telephone where they would call and give information. That's one. But by the fact that it is public, it is live on TV and radio, that's how even the public gets to know that they are sure that their district has achieved such and such activities. It is not only that way. Even we have what we call public accountability day. The mayors, every quarter presents what they have achieved vis-ˆ-vis implementing imihigo (achieving their imihigo). The presentation is public and they invite the community to come and participate. . By the fact that signing and reporting before the president, is live, it is public, live on TV and radio. So they get to know everything. The citizens have radio, they know what they achieved. They even rank-. Then I remember there is, where we went last year, I think you'll go there and see. We went somewhere and they told us, the citizens told us, we want to be the first. You know, that one has significant impact. Getting information from the community tells me that we want to be the first. They have that commitment, they have that zeal, they have that determination. So in that way, we say they really have to, they know what is taking place. They can't say we want to be the first, to be the first in what? So they know everything. I don't know if I have really addressed your question. SCHER: Absolutely. But then the follow-up question is, so what happens if a mayor is not meeting his imihigo? If he doesn't achieve them, what happens? MUFULUKYE: What we do, there are no punitive actions, no. What we do, we just know what are the challenges that led the district X not to achieve its target. So we have really to understand what are the challenges. We base on that one, and decide how can that district be supported. District X may never have achieved its objective because of financial constraint. They say maybe we never constructed a bridge or a school because the central government had committed money and they didn't fulfill the promise. Then even the central government, the ministry that had promised the money is really ashamed to say that the district is not performing because of that ministry. The central government is directly linked because we are already implicated there. They tell us what the ministry of local government had promised to do, and that never provided the money. But for us we are able to raise such and such funding. In that way, you have to feel accountable within yourself - that the district never achieved the target because of my role. So you also have to feel it;. Another thing is just to advise them. We understand what are the challenges. Then we advise them. What we told them today, is sometimes being overambitious. That's what we were telling them: Don't try to be overambitious; depending on the resources available, tell us what you want to achieve. Commit yourself only to the activities that you are able to achieve. If you don't have money, if you don't have funding, no need of committing yourself. SCHER: What would happen in the case of district X where they said they'd build a bridge, they did get the money from the central government, but then maybe they were slow-they just didn't get around to it, their planning was bad. So it was the district mayor's responsibility and he just, or she, just didn't do it. What happens then? Still no punitive measures? MUFULUKYE: Fortunately, we have not seen cases where districts have not performed well in the imihigo. SCHER: Really? MUFULUKYE: No. They have all performed well. Maybe there are some activities they have not achieved. But when you try to rank most of the districts, you find they achieved over 70%, and that's a great achievement. Maybe what you are trying to say is about their action plans. Sometimes you see they don't achieve their action plans. Some action plans-of course, there are some actions taken. Some of the leaders have been removed from their positions by their district council because they were not able to deliver. But I was told that there are districts where they wanted to vote out their mayor because they were ranked last in imihigo, because they never achieved. It seems the citizens were not happy with that, to hear that their district is the last. So they warned the mayor-we don't want to be the last. But of course, we shall always have the first and the last. What is important for us this time, we are saying let's not base on ranking alone, let's base on general performance. If we have 30 districts and all of them achieve 80% but still one district may got 90% and maybe the last district has got 80%. Would you say that, that district is poorly performing? No. That shouldn't be the case. Maybe you should take action when your district has failed to achieve your target. But when it comes to ranking, ranking should be the last thing. It comes last. For us we want to see the general performance, and we see how have we performed generally, how have districts performed? You could even be the first district when you have 30%. Would you say that you're performing? No. If you have 30% and you are the first district, that means the general performance is poor. That's what it would mean. So our target now, our forecast is, what is the general performance? But still ranking is important because we want to instill that culture of competition. SCHER: So there is competition going on between district mayors, within a district, but then also between governors of different provinces? MUFULUKYE: Yes. The provinces, they even have contracts, they sign contracts as well. SCHER: So the imihigo at the provincial level-. MUFULUKYE: Yes, they started last year. SCHER: And that is drawing on the different imihigo within the district? MUFULUKYE: Within the district, but focusing on their responsibilities. What is the role of the province? So they base on the roles of the province and then prepare their imihigo. Yes. SCHER: Excellent. So it seems to me that it is a system that you're working on refining constantly and-. MUFULUKYE: Yes. Like today, we were telling them that there are some areas they have to improve; like unrealistic and over ambitious targets should be avoided. But that's a challenge, a problem of planning, being overambitious, having no targets. Those should be avoided. We even told them activities without funding - clear funding or defined funding-those ones should be part of action plan and not imihigo. Then we were seeing that there are some gaps in data. So we said they have to be clear with their data. We also see that there was a problem of poor costing of activities. We could say-. So it is a problem of planning. So those are the areas we are telling them they have to concentrate/improve. Another thing was about to differentiate between imihigo and action plan. We had to insist on that one. We told them that things that are routine in nature should be avoided. For instance someone cannot say, this year we have to prepare action plan, or this year we commit ourselves to prepare the budget. That's routine, So those are the areas of improvement we told them. SCHER: Excellent. Can I ask maybe one or two more questions? MUFULUKYE: Yes, sure. SCHER: I had some questions regarding the evaluation process. So now you are currently touring around the districts and evaluating progress. But there are also quarterly reports that they have to-. MUFULUKYE: Yes. SCHER: And do you tour only once a year, only annually, before the end of the fiscal year? How does this work? MUFULUKYE: You know, imihigo is an annual activity. What we do, normally, we have recently changed the approach. We used to have quarterly evaluations. SCHER: Quarterly tours like you are doing now? MUFULUKYE: Yes. But now, that one was done by the district. We could just have the central government, especially the prime minister would go to the districts and see how they are performing and give them advice. But depending on this imihigo that would be prepared based on output, not on activity, we see a quarter is too short. OK? For the output to be realized. So we said, we should have midterm evaluation, midterm assessment, and this one has to be done once, after six months. So how that one is done, it is done by the districts. But the central government goes there to see where they are performing, where they are not performing, the challenges they encounter, which intervention should be provided. If it is a certain ministry that is disappointing them in terms of providing committed resources, such challenges. So the prime minister goes there to see the progress and challenges encountered, and then based on the challenges, he advises them and even contacts concerned ministries to fulfill their commitment for the districts Imihigo. SCHER: And then there is also, but this tour that you're doing now is the end of the year one, right? MUFULUKYE: This an annual one, it is an annual exercise. So the annual exercise we evaluate all 30 districts. All the 30 districts depending on the imihigo document they signed with the president. So what we do, we go there with the document they signed with the president, and with the report they submitted. Then what we do, we work with them. if they said activity X will was achieved, we just ask them means of verification. Some of the activities you go to the field to see them - if they exist. Some we evaluate based on the papers submitted to different institutions. If, for instance, somebody was to buy a water tank and when you go there, he gives you a receipt where the water tank was paid, you really know that that one has been fulfilled. So now the exercise we are moving to all 30 districts. SCHER: And the same nine-member team goes to all the districts. MUFULUKYE: Yes, we have nine institutions, President's Office, Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Local Government, Ministry of Finance, Rwanda Governance Advisory Council, Decentralization Secretariat; we private sector; we have civil society and we have Rwanda's Association for Local Government. I think those are nine. SCHER: I think that's it, that's nine. MUFULUKYE: Even the province and Kigali city. When we are going to Northern Province, we need a representative of Northern Province to be part of that team. If we are going to the west, a representative of the west has to be part of the team. So each institution provided two people. So we are 18; so we have two groups. We have two groups. We divided the districts amongst the two groups, but still we have the criteria/guidelines to follow. SCHER: All the same. MUFULUKYE: All the same. What you have to do is just base on evaluation criteria/guidelines and then appreciate what has been done. It depends on one's appreciation. Yes, but what is important is to have criteria. If you are going to evaluate this is the criterion. There is something I have to tell you, Daniel. It is about scoring. SCHER: Yes, tell me about scoring. MUFULUKYE: How do we score? I told you we have three pillars. But we don't give them equal scores. SCHER: You have a weighting system? MUFULUKYE: Yes, we have a weighting system. The total number of activities in economic development pillar are given 60%. Then social pillar is given 30%. And governance, including justice, is given 10%. Though we are giving governance and justice 10%, it does not mean we are not giving it value. It means, for you to be able to achieve this economic-development activities, governance has to be there somehow. You have to be well-coordinated, you have to involve different actors. So governance has to be there in that way. Not only that, we are saying that today we have security. We have everything. we are achieving unity. We are doing that. What is important today is economic development and social welfare; that's our major focus. How do we develop economically, and how do we develop our social sector. That's why we give them the higher weights. Then an activity that has been achieved wholly is given 10 mark (the one that has good 90 to 100 is given 10 mark). The one that has been achieved from 80 to 89 has a 9 mark score. So 70 to 79 it is an 8 score; 60 to 69 it is 7 score. Then up to the one, the 0-5%--that one wasn't really achieved, it gets 0. Then what is important, is to assess the general performance, we give different colors. like traffic light. So the ones that have been achieved from 90 and above is achieved, it is green. Then from 80 to 60 they are partially achieved and that is yellow. Then red is below 50, that's failure. SCHER: I see. I'm very conscious of your time. I know people are trying to get hold of you. Thank you very much. MUFULUKYE: Thank you. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Civil Service Oral History Program Interview number: S-9 ______________________________________________________________________ 1 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties