Rwanda is said to be the cleanest country in the world. In 2018, for example, the head of the United Nations (UN) Environment Program, Eric Solheim, said that the capital of one of the countries on the African continent, Kigali, was "the cleanest city on the planet" because rubbish was barely visible on the streets.
Drew Binsky said the same thing in 2022. The blogger who has visited 197 countries in the world also ranked Rwanda as the cleanest country in the world. In fact, ahead of Singapore.
According to CNN Indonesia's report, this 'cleanest' nickname is not without reason. This is because the Rwandan government has a policy that makes its citizens carry out voluntary clean-up actions in an activity known as Umuganda.
Umuganda is a cleaning activity that takes place every last Saturday of the month. All healthy Rwandans aged 18-65 years are required to participate in community improvement projects, including cleaning roads, improving public facilities, and building houses for the vulnerable. All residents are asked to carry out this activity from 08.00 am to 11.00 am.
“We did Umuganda to solve these problems without needing to invest money. "We are using our resources and people," said Director General of the Ministry of Regional Government of Rwanda, Richard Kubana, as quoted by The Straits Times, November 13 2023.
Rwandan law states that anyone who misses Umuganda without a valid reason can be fined 5.000 Rwandan francs (RWF) or around IDR 61 thousand.
