September 2, 2025: A PTF Europe team recently visited Kigali to launch the “Alliances and Partnerships for Evidence-led Environmental and Social Safeguarding Accountability (APESA)” Project in Rwanda. The project is being implemented between May 2025 and May 2028 with Transparency International Rwanda (TI-RW) under a 2.1 million EUR grant funded by the European Union.
The project aims to promote environmental and social justice for citizens at all stages of public infrastructure development. It will do so through through the:
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- training of public sector officials as well as CSOs and citizens on social accountability and on environmental and social safeguards
- monitoring the compliance of infrastructure projects with existing legislation
- promoting greater transparency and accountability in infrastructure planning and implementation to ensure the rights of citizens are respected at all stages of the process.
The project team, composed of Donal O’Leary, PTF Project Director; Richard Holloway, Social Accountability Advisor; and Yacine Belhaj-Bouabdallah, Project Coordinator, visited Kigali in July 2025. They worked with TI-RW on the project start-up, to jointly present the project to public officials, and to engage with relevant stakeholders.
The APESA Project Team meets with Rwanda’s public Office of the Ombudsman
The APESA Project team is currently in the process of selecting sub-grantees, and will subsequently begin a training of trainers process on the topic of environmental and social standards and on social accountability.
