Just a few weeks after the meeting in Kigali the municipalities and institutions from Rhineland-Palatinate taking part in the project also held their first networking meeting. This two-day event was hosted by the School of Public Administration in Mayen. Together with Engagement Global's Service Agency Communities in One World and the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior and Sport, the organisers clearly enjoyed discussing with the project participants the progress they had made in cooperation with their respective partner district or partner institution in Rwanda.
In his opening speech Dirk Roselt, Deputy Director of the School of Public Administration, emphasised that the partnership between Rhineland-Palatinate and Rwanda was particularly valuable, particularly emotional and therefore particularly successful: 'There's more behind it than just a professional duty.'
When opening the networking meeting the speaker from Germany's Federal Development Ministry, Nicole A. Hofmann, underlined the fact that the partnership project was a living example of the multi-level approach embracing the federal, regional and local levels. This, she explained, was facilitating a mutual sharing of lessons learned between participants in Rhineland-Palatinate and Rwanda – especially with regard to the SDGs. At present nine municipalities and related institutions in Rhineland-Palatinate are taking part in the project, which was launched in 2018.