This week, the Mayor of Kigali City, Marie-Chantal Rwakazina, and her Paris counterpart,  Anne Hidalgo signed a cooperation agreement to enable officials from the two cities learn from each other.

The areas of focus in the agreement include issues of historic archives and memory, protection of the environment, innovation and ICTs, citizen participation, culture and sports, delivering public services to city residents among others.

According to Marie Chantal Rwakazina, Kigali has a lot to learn from Paris, especially in the areas of fundraising from members of the private sector in order to ensure that the city relies less on central government funding for both income generating projects and social support services.

“We are very happy for this partnership and we hope to achieve a lot of good things together. We have a lot to learn from each other,” she said.

When asked about what Paris will learn from Kigali, The Mayor Anne Hidalgo says that Paris can learn from Kigali how to use annual performance contracts in administration.

“The speed at which Kigali is transforming is of high interest for us, we were amazed by Kigali’s efforts to protect the environment, include different social groups in the city’s development, and the planning approach.”

 “In the future, it will be very critical to be able to move fast and the speed with which Kigali is transforming will help inspire us especially in the area of political decisions” she said.

The Mayor of Paris was in Kigali to officially preside over the  89^th meeting of the Bureau of the International Association of French-speaking mayors (AIMF).