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Kigali, Rwanda

The City of Kigali is one of the five provinces of Rwanda and it is situated in the centre of Rwanda. It was created in 1907 and grew spatially from 8 Hectares to the current 730 km² of which 70% remains rural. Its population also increased substantially from 6000 in 1945 to 1,630,657 in 2017.

The youth make up about 60% of the city population and women make slightly more than 50%. The city is administratively subdivided into three districts: Gasabo, Kicukiro, and Nyarugenge, 35 sectors, also subdivided into 161 cells and 1061 Villages. The city is marked by a moderate-high altitude climate despite its tropical location and is conveniently located within three hours’ drive of the main tourist sites of the county.

In economy, Kigali is one of the fastest economic growing cities in Africa due to the enhancement of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) development. PPPs enabled a good investment environment with the creation of jobs and subsequently the improvement of people’s lives. Between 2011 and 2016, close to 700 investors opened businesses in the City of Kigali. They invested in road construction, commercial buildings, housing estates, and apartments, schools and universities, industries, hotels, conference halls, to name a few. The transport system has also been improved by renovating the roads system with a pedestrian-friendly design, road paving, and traffic lighting.

With regard to health and living conditions, Public, Private, and Faith-based health facilities provide healthcare services across the City, and four of six national referral hospitals are located in the City of Kigali. The access to electricity by households stands at 78.4per cent while for drinking water coverage and city ranks first countrywide with the highest proportion (about 95per cent ) of households using improved water sources (water at home, public tap, and protected spring/well).

Formal and Non-formal Learning Infrastructure 

The city of Kigali has been expanding in education facilities.  Kigali is home to 248 nursery schools, 239 primary schools, and 143 secondary schools, and 61.  They include among others Green Hills Academy, Ecole Internationale Francaise, Riviera High School, and Ecole Belge.

In higher education, 28 out of 46 (60per cent) of the higher learning institutions in Rwanda are based in Kigali with 56 percent of the total 89,160 registered students in the country. Higher education institutions include the University of Rwanda created in 2013 to manage six colleges of which three are located in Kigali namely the College of Business and Economics (CBE), College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS), and the College of Science and Technology (CST). Likewise, Kigali hosts the Headquarters of Rwanda Polytechnic, a public institution of higher learning mandated to manage eight Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges (IPRCs). 89 percent of the higher learning institutions in Kigali are privately owned. The most known private institutions in Kigali are the University of Kigali, Kigali independent University, Adventist University of Central Africa, Mount Kenya University, and the University of Tourism Technology and Business studies. There are international Institutions like Akilah Institute for Women, Kigali (AIWK), and Carnegie Mellon University Rwanda (CMUR.

In adult literacy, Kigali city registers 162 out of 4991 training centres in the country and accommodates 4.1 % of the total national adult literacy learners. It is a shortage of adult training centres, which goes hand in hand with the reduced number of public libraries. Libraries in Kigali only include Kigali Public Library[1] and other specialized libraries located in government and private organizations, mainly universities and embassies operating in Kigali.

The city has also amplified initiatives stemming from national government by organising various formal and informal community education activities, including:

Learning City Developments

In Kigali, planning for the learning city development is organised under the Social Development Unit of the City which has a responsibility to coordinate the implementation of policies, programs, plans, and activities related to social protection, gender and family promotion, sports, and culture promotion, youth empowerment and education.  Since the development of education in the City is a preserve of the city district in decentralisation of education services framework, the City’s role is inspection to ensure the quality of education is maintained in the schools. Thus, districts work with different partners in what is commonly known as Joint Action Development Forum (JADF) established at the District level to serve as a consultative forum for District Development Stakeholders (CSOs, NGOs, Development Partners, Private and Public Sectors and Local Government).

For instance, in the 2013-2018 City Development Plan, the role of the city was to promote the quality of education through regular inspection of schools;  the organization of a yearly peer evaluation and awarding of best performers;  and the organization of reading, writing and debate competitions for primary and secondary schools students where the best students are awarded E-Books, certificates, and reading books. These students’ competitions served as a motivation to stimulate the culture of reading among the city’s young population.

Some of the Key Activities in the LLL field

One of the activities in the context of LLL is depicted under the “Smart Kigali Initiative”[2] project launched in 2013, Kigali city authorities and the government of Rwanda wants ICT facilities to be accessed by the population wherever they are located and so far started a project of free 4G WIFI Roll-out in all buses operating in the City of Kigali with plans to install free 3G WIFI in all Inter-city and Rural Public Transport. The Project also includes “New Smart Bus Shelters” (With WIFI; Digital screens) across the country starting with the City of Kigali.

Key Priority Areas for Future Development in LLL

Priority areas for future development in LLL in Kigali are based on the city’s vision “Our Kigali! The Centre of Urban Excellence in Africa”. In the Education sector, the City of Kigali strives to promote the quality of education through:

• Regular inspection of schools,
• Organization of a yearly peer evaluation and awarding of best performers,
• Organization of reading, writing, and debate competitions for primary and secondary school students where the best students are awarded E-Books, certificates, and reading books.
• Stimulate the culture of reading among young students.  

This goes with the spirit of an ICT driven city where plans in this domain evolve around:

• Development of an extensive fiber-optic infrastructure that intends to deliver 4G LTE capability to more than 95 percent of citizens
• Connected Transportation: Easy to understand and inexpensive to use, Kigali city buses can reach most of the major landmarks in the city, and free Wi-Fi is offered onboard.
• Create Imagination Stations like FabLab Kigali where People need a space to work out their ideas and the tools and financial support to test them out
• Establish Large-scale education programmes to build basic and digital literacy where Citizens will need new skills — in engineering, urban planning, architecture, and technology
• Put in place more Recreational áreas and Public Libraries
• Embracing IT in service delivery

Kigali City has already embarked on the process of networking with other Cities for learning from each other. This was manifested in the organization of the “Kigali, the learning laboratory for cities around the world”[3]. The four-day event – called the Global Lab on Metropolitan Strategic Planning or MetroLab – was co-organised by the World Bank Group and the City of Kigali’s Office of Urban Planning and Construction One-Stop Center.

The event hosted 80 municipal leaders from 20 countries as part of an on-going effort to help cities learn from one another. The Kigali venue gave city officials, urban planners, and technical experts an opportunity to learn about the country is regional planning efforts with site visits to the Central Business District, the Special Economic Zone, and Rwanda Housing Authority’s Building Material Centre.

As part of the activities planned for the events, participants also joined communities in all three of Kigali’s districts for Umuganda, working to replot a neighborhood for affordable housing and build a new drain alongside a pedestrian street that is being introduced in Kigali’s pilot project in urban upgrading.

The city was excited to share this experience with the MetroLab participants, as it truly exemplifies the country’s approach to inclusive and sustainable metropolitan growth.