Along with colleagues from the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU), I have just returned from a five-day visit to Rwanda where we are working with the Rwandan Association of Local Government Authorities to set up a Local Government Institute to build capacity among members and officers in Rwandan councils.

The central fact of social and political life there remains, unsurprisingly, the 1994 genocide in which a million people were murdered in a 100-day paroxysm of violence.