{"id":445317,"date":"2011-06-21T14:21:51","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T14:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/"},"modified":"2011-06-21T14:21:51","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T14:21:51","slug":"ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/","title":{"rendered":"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"60.0798531436\">\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecommonwealth.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Commonwealth News and Information Service<\/a> (London)<\/p>\n<p>20 June 2011<\/p>\n<hr class=\"thin clear\" \/>\n<p>press release<\/p>\n<p>Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith has ended a visit to Rwanda, where he briefed President Paul Kagame on preparations for the October 28-30 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia (CHOGM), and discussed bilateral issues with senior officials.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Smith met the president on 17 June 2011 in the capital Kigali. As well as CHOGM, he discussed progress being made in examining areas in which Rwanda required the Commonwealth&#8217;s assistance in capacity-building and institutional strengthening.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Smith highlighted areas in which the Commonwealth could assist Rwanda in its growth trajectory, including trade policy formulation and negotiation, export development strategy implementation, public sector development and reforms, and meeting MDG targets in health and education.<\/p>\n<p>Other areas he cited were strengthening oversight institutions such as the Office of the Ombudsman, the human rights body, media, the Office of the Auditor-General, parliamentary committees and Rwanda&#8217;s election management body.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had very fruitful meetings with ministers and senior officials and have a clear sense of how to progress. We will be following this up with officials so we can meet areas the country has identified as priorities,&#8221; Mr Smith said, who also met the ministers of finance, trade, education, and labour and public works.<\/p>\n<p>At a Saturday (18 October 2011) event, Mr Smith gave a baby gorilla the name &#8220;Indamutso&#8221;, or greetings. He picked the name because he was bringing the Commonwealth&#8217;s greetings to the conservation sector in Rwanda.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Indamutso&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The mountain gorilla population is estimated at 780 for both Virunga and Bwindi forest, of which 270 mountain gorillas belong to Rwanda.<\/p>\n<p>The gorilla naming ceremony was organised by the Rwanda Development Board, whose CEO, John Gara, said the government&#8217;s conservation agenda had eased the threat of extinction of gorillas, whose numbers were steadily rising in the Virunga mountains, which traverse Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are a beauty to watch. We protect them for their own sake. A secondary reason is that we receive tourist dollars from them,&#8221; Mr Gara said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Gara said Rwanda was committed to involving the local communities in gorilla conservation and protection, and handed five per cent of park revenues to communities, as well as built infrastructure like schools, homes and community centres.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<fieldset>\n<legend align=\"center\"><strong>More News on allAfrica.com<\/strong><\/legend>\n<\/fieldset>\n<p>AllAfrica &#8211; All the Time<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Original post:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/201106210991.html\" title=\"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Commonwealth News and Information Service (London) 20 June 2011 press release Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith has ended a visit to Rwanda, where he briefed President Paul Kagame on preparations for the October 28-30 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia (CHOGM), and discussed bilateral issues with senior officials. Mr Smith met the president on 17 June 2011 in the capital Kigali. As well as CHOGM, he discussed progress being made in examining areas in which Rwanda required the Commonwealth&#8217;s assistance in capacity-building and institutional strengthening<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":399931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-445317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Commonwealth News and Information Service (London) 20 June 2011 press release Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith has ended a visit to Rwanda, where he briefed President Paul Kagame on preparations for the October 28-30 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia (CHOGM), and discussed bilateral issues with senior officials. 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As well as CHOGM, he discussed progress being made in examining areas in which Rwanda required the Commonwealth&#039;s assistance in capacity-building and institutional strengthening\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-21T14:21:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\"},\"wordCount\":400,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"articleSection\":[\"Local News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\",\"name\":\"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame - Ghanamma.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-21T14:21:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"\",\"contentUrl\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/\",\"name\":\"Ghanamma.com\",\"description\":\"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame - Ghanamma.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/21\/ransford-smith-meets-president-kagame\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Ransford Smith Meets President Kagame - Ghanamma.com","twitter_description":"Commonwealth News and Information Service (London) 20 June 2011 press release Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith has ended a visit to Rwanda, where he briefed President Paul Kagame on preparations for the October 28-30 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia (CHOGM), and discussed bilateral issues with senior officials. 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