7th February 2015: The National Consultative Forum for Political Organizations in Rwanda (NFPO) organised yet another “Youth Political Leadership Programme (YPLA)” last weekend. This programme aims at empowering and inspiring young leaders to be involved in political processes and to become capable and responsible political leaders. The intensive training spans six weekends within a period of three months at the end of which the graduates get certificates.
Speaking during a joint monitoring visit of the Government, the One UN, and Development Partners, the UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Lamin Manneh commended the youth for the “aspiration to become the next generation of leaders to achieve Rwanda’s development goals.”
The topic for discussion on the day of the visit was on political leadership and change management which was presented by Dr. Eric Ndushabandi from the University of Rwanda.
During the training, the question and answer session was especially interesting with participants asking analytical questions such as what happens when there is conflict of ideology within the a given political party or whether local elected leaders within the decentralized government need to be aligned to political parties for them to be elected.
The YPLA programme of the NFPO, which has been running with the support of UNDP and the One UN since 2011, has trained over 600 young people on political leadership. Participants of this programme are nominated by all eleven registered political parties. The candidates must have at least a first degree and be under 35 years.
After the session, Professor Anastase Shyaka, the Chair of the Steering Committee of Deepening Democracy and Accountable Governance (DDAG) programme, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Governance Board, commended the NFPO for conducting the training in an inclusive and participatory manner. He further urged the young leaders to embrace “constructive debates based on people centered governance and be good leaders of today and tomorrow.”
The DDAG programme, under which this project is implemented, is a joint One UN programme which seeks to deepen democracy in Rwanda by focusing on strengthening citizen participation, enhancing capacities of institutions of accountability and availing evidence for planning. Other partners in the programme include the National Parliament, The Rwanda Governance Board, The Media High Council, The National Electoral Commission and on the Part of the One UN, UNDP, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women and UNV. The Rwanda Media Commission which is the media self-regulation mechanism as well as the Association of Rwanda Journalists is also part of the programme. The Swedish Embassy in Rwanda provides financial support to this programme.
In his final remarks, Mr. Manneh, noted that “The One UN in Rwanda support’s this training programme because we believe that preparing leaders adequately for this and next generation leadership may be the one guarantee we have in securing the peace and prosperity we have in Rwanda for generations to come.”
On his Part, Prof Shyaka thanked the One UN and the Embassy of Sweden- which was represented during visit- for “their unwavering support to the Rwanda Government and people towards sustainable governance.”