Rwandan President Paul Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame on Saturday joined thousands of fellow Rwandans in the monthly community work dubbed umuganda.

Umuganda was formally introduced by the government in 1998 as one of the Rwanda's home-grown solutions to reinforce socio-economic development and to promote the use of cultural resources in mitigating effects of scarce resources as envisioned in vision 2020.

It is held on the last Saturday of every month, with citizens all around the country taking part.

President Kagame joined residents of Kimihurura Sector in the building of drainage systems and retaining walls among other projects.

"I am happy to be here to join hands with you today. We are here to challenge ourselves to set even more goals together, and to continue sustaining what we have achieved," President Kagame told the residents of Kimihurura.

"I want to thank you for upholding the culture of working together through umuganda, if we did not have it we would not have achieved this level of development. Our transformation is founded on joining hands and believing in the progress we deserve."

Umuganda is credited with making Rwanda become one of Africa's cleanest countries. Through it, residents help make their communities better by building drainage systems, helping maintain road networks, conducting routine clean-ups and much more.

Due to Umuganda, the East African country's capital, Kigali, is considered by some organizations and publications the cleanest city in the continent.

With the success Rwanda has realized with the project over the years, other countries in Africa are also imitating it, including Kenya and Ethiopia.

Source: Rwanda Presidency