Kigali, 12 July 2018- Horezo IDP Model Village is located in Rongi Sector, Muhanga District, Southern Province. The Rwf21 billion model village was launched by HE Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda at the celebration of 24^th anniversary of National Liberation. 

Seated on a surface of 45 hectares, the model village has 25 blocks with 4housing units in a single plot (4in1) fully equipped to accommodate 100 families as phase 1 of the development but intends to accommodate other 500 families from different locations during the next phases.

The model village not only consists of a Twelve-Year Basic Education School built in storied structure for the first time in a village, an Early Childhood Development center, a health post and a multipurpose center, but also includes kitchen vegetable gardens an agricultural farm land where different plants and fruits especially pineapples and avocadoes will be grown for commercial purposes. 

Speaking at the event, President of the Republic, HE Paul Kagame said “the houses would be the foundation to help beneficiaries transform their lives. We are not building to see it falling apart in a year. Giving citizens a home is about providing a foundation to build on and transform your lives. It is not about citizens becoming eternally dependent on government”.

“We want to see those who were given homes prosper. You should not expect government to take care of all your needs. The next step should not be helping the same people over and over but to move on to helping others”, he emphasized.

Kagame reaffirmed that access to infrastructure is people`s rights guaranteed by government. “Access to electricity, water and other services provided by government is your right; you should hold us accountable and demand that we deliver. Do not accept to pay anyone a bribe, delivering and serving you is our duty,” he urged residents.

The Government of Rwanda adopted an Integrated Development Programme approach as a comprehensive strategy to fast track rural grouped settlements development aligned to broad based income generation and economic expansion towards achieving the EDPRS (and now NST) targets on economic growth and poverty reduction.

Rwanda’s Vision 2020 intends a proportion of at least 70 % of households living in rural areas to settle in integrated viable settlements and these planned settlements offer economic opportunities, favor rational land use and management and accelerate servicing with basic social economic and physical infrastructures in rural areas.

Reshaping rural settlements in Rwanda through adapting an all-inclusive rural settlement model that centers on providing access to clean water, electricity, health facilities, common marketplace, smart classrooms, improved road networks, common cowshed, embracing better agricultural practices among other things can be traced to one of the resolutions passed during the Government of Rwanda’s Leadership Retreat that took place in 2007.