Rwanda Governance Board
- Background
- Programmes
- Conference
- Empowerment
- SDGs
- Contact
- Promotion of Good Governance principles across public and private institutions
- Monitoring of governance practices – including service delivery – in political, public, corporate and civic domains
- Applied research on governance matters and policy advocacy
- Documenting homegrown initiatives through research
- Decentralisation and Local Government Capacity Building co-ordination
- Registration of national NGOs, FBOs and Political Parties
- Granting legal personality to national NGOs and FBOs
- Media Development and advocacy
- Rwanda Governance Advisory Council (RGAC)
- National Decentralisation Implementation Secretariat (NDIS)
- Department in charge of national NGOs/FBOs and PPs previously under the remit of the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC)
- Department in charge of granting legal personality to national NGOs and FBOs previously under the remit of the Ministry of Justice (MINIJUST)
- Media development and reform previously under the remit of the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs (MINICAAF)
- Promotion of Good Governance principles across public and private institutions
- Monitoring governance practices and service delivery in political, public, corporate and civic domains
- Home-grown solutions documentation
- Policy Dialogue Programme (PDP)
- Joint Governance Assessment (JGA)
- To develop a common understanding of governance issues in Rwanda
- To reduce transaction costs by consolidating different donor governance assessment activities
- To provide an objective, evidence-based assessment that reflects Rwanda’s specific governance history and its current context and realities and to develop a framework for future programming, monitoring and evaluation of governance trends
- Mobile School of Governance (MSG)
- Joint Action Development Forum (JDAF)
- Coaching programme for Local Government
- Civil Society Empowerment
- Collaboration with Development Partners
- Capacity development for CSOs: CSO networks have been selected through a competitive process and awarded grants. Prior to this, networks undertook capacity assessments of their members and developed capacity building plans
- Evidence-based policy advocacy: Financial resources provided to CSOs will enable them to undertake evidence-based policy advocacy through conducting policy research, developing policy models, conducting ad-hoc advocacy campaigns, holding policy dialogues to influence policymakers and evaluating the impact of policy advocacy
- Capacity strengthening of RGB: RGB will be enabled to put in place mechanisms for efficient registration of CSOs, including online registration and other ICT-based services, and also to implement its new strategic plan (for the CSO component) as well as the publication of a CSO directory on a bi-annual basis. Further, RGB intends to forge links with local academic institutions to provide short professional courses for CSOs. Additionally, RGB will convene annual policy dialogues on civil society and democratisation to discuss achievements and challenges in CSO development in the country
FOSTERING GOOD GOVERNANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Rwanda has, in recent years, registered impressive progress in governance. The establishment of the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) is a logical sequel to the comprehensive and ambitious governance reforms that the Government of Rwanda (GoR) has pursued over the past decade. The GoR recognised the strategic and policy imperative to continuously and closely monitor and assess the status of governance as a result of the various reforms undertaken. In particular, it determined the necessity for continuous research, monitoring of the implementation of governance principles and promotion of best practices in governance.
CORE MISSION
RGB has these specific core mission objectives:
RGB: ONE-STOP-CENTRE
Rwanda Governance Board was structured to serve as a One-Stop-Centre for Good Governance, merging existing institutions and services and expanding its mandate to new services pertinent to good governance. Regarding the existing institutions, RGB merged:
New governance related services include:
Prof. Anastase Shyaka RGB CEO
SPECIAL PROGRAMMES
To further its objectives, RGB has embarked on these special programmes:
PDP is an innovative programme conceived and implemented by RGB to strengthen and enhance civic participation, transparency, vertical and horizontal accountability and research-based evidence in public policy processes. This programme also serves as a strategic forum for networking with international governance indexes in order to objectively assess Rwanda’s governance.
JGA is a worldwide governance novelty jointly owned by the GoR and its development partners. It aims to objectively assess governance issues in Rwanda using jointly agreed indicators.
JGA objectives are:
MSG is an innovative project of RGB whose primary objective is to enhance local governance standards in Rwanda through empowering local leaders and non-state actors with knowledge and skills to effectively and efficiently respond to the demands of citizens geared towards national and societal development. Specifically, MSG aims at expanding citizens’ participation in public affairs, local leaders’ accountability and responsiveness to citizens’ demands and voices.
Co-ordinated by RGB, JADF is a mechanism designed to achieve improved service delivery and economic development at the local level. It co-ordinates activities of all development actors including local government, development partners, CSOs and private sector so as to promote efficient local governance and economic development.
The capacity building of local government leaders is a key ingredient to the success of the Decentralisation Policy which Rwanda has embarked on. The coaching programme aims at providing skills transfer in the workplace based on the specific needs of every district.
Civil Society is seen as weak in participating in governance. RGB is working to address this through awarding competitive grants to help CSOs undertake projects to enhance their role in governance and development. Rwandan CSOs are awarded grants to carry out projects such as rights advocacy, media, service delivery and youth civic engagement. Public recognition awards are also given to national CSOs for their outstanding work on accountability and good governance.
RGB, to foster the Governance agenda, collaborates with several DPs in the implementation of special programmes, notably the UNDP, BTC, the Netherlands Embassy and GIZ.
The main objective of the conference was to provide a critical review of development/ democratic governance issues, constraints, and opportunities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. After more than fifty years of failed development in those regions, the time has come for interested scholars and practitioners to seriously devise and implement concrete strategies geared toward building sustainable healthy communities.
Key information
Political space and empowerment of civil society organisations in Rwanda
Current situation of CSOs in Rwanda
The Government of Rwanda considers civil society an important feature of good governance, as it provides an important framework for citizens to voice and aggregate their needs, offers a channel to convey them to government and is one of the key actors to hold public institutions accountable.
Since 1994, the government supported the establishment and growth of civil society organisations and has been partnering with them in various programmes aimed at achieving sustainable development of the country. The number of civil society organisations in Rwanda has increased tremendously to 754 Religious Based Organisations, 574 local NGOs and 11 political parties, making a total of 1,339 CSOs.
RGB’s role: High efficiency and greater space for CSOs
When RGB was mandated in 2011, to register, empower and monitor CSOs and enhance civic participation, there was a backlog of many applications. To expedite the registration process, RGB spearheaded the enactment of law no. 04/2012 of 17/02/2012, governing the organisation and functioning of national NGOs which simplified the registration of CSOs. This is a clear manifestation that the government has the goodwill and provides political space for CSOs to flourish and operate.
RGB established the Civil Society Development Barometer (CSDB) as a research tool to assess the role and impact of CSOs in Rwanda’s prosperity. The benchmark 2012 Civil Society Development barometer revealed that CSOs are generally regarded as effective in empowering people and advancing social interests.
However, the barometer indicates that some CSOs need to be strengthened in holding state and corporates accountable and meeting social needs. It also highlighted the need for capacity development support to CSOs on a long-term basis with a view to bridging capacity disparities and ensuring that most CSOs play an active role in sustainable development programmes.
It is against this background that RGB in partnership with One UN-Rwanda launched a five-year joint programme, with a total budget of US$8.6 million, aimed at strengthening CSOs for responsive and accountable governance in Rwanda.
L-R: Mr Auke Lootsma (UNDP Rwanda Country Director) Ingabire M. Immaculee (one of the grantees of Transparency Rwanda) and Prof. Anastase Shyaka (RGB CEO) at the grants awarding ceremony on 7 November 2014
Interventions to empower and strengthen CSOs
So far, 26 successful proposals out of 182 applicants received grants totaling a million dollars. This is the first step of a broad range of activities to support national CSOs. In the near future, more emphasis will be focused on enhancing participation of CSOs in activities aimed at promoting accountable governance and effectively meeting social needs of the people through the Joint Action Development Forum (JADF). CSOs massively responded to the call for proposals and this affirms the need for more financial support.
This is part of a wider strategy to deepen collaboration between CSOs and government to discuss and advocate for the voices of civil society to be taken into account in public policy-making. Again, this is a clear indication of the government’s commitment to provide space and freedom of assembly and association as guaranteed by the constitution. The programme will also strengthen the capacities of CSOs to hold public and private sectors to account as well as advocate for the rights of the weak and marginalised sections of the Rwandan society. CSOs’ penetration into rural areas will be raised from 27 per cent in 2012 to 50 per cent in 2018.
Prof. Anastase Shyaka (RGB CEO)
“Giving out grants today translates into Rwanda’s commitment to support the CSOs in strengthening their capacity to deliver and foster civic participation in order to improve the livelihoods of the people by engaging in productive economic activities.”
Strategic focus areas
Rwanda: an African model for piloting Sustainable Development Goals
Rwanda has been honoured as the only country in sub-Saharana Africa, and one of a few countries globally, to pilot the sustainable development goals (SDGs) on governance and the rule of law. This is in recognition of its eff orts to entrench good governance as the foundation for sustainable development. Governance, peace and rule of law are some of the new concerns proposed by the UN General Assembly through the post-2015 agenda to accurately measure sustainable development.
Rwanda’s governance model addresses the many challenges posed by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and delivers political stability and socioeconomic gains. It has enabled the transformation of lives of millions of citizens. The model found footing in home-grown solutions, a consensual model of democracy and people-centred governance.
Good governance that focuses on the rule of law, peace and security, accountable and equitable systems that ensure the provision of opportunity for all have been essential prerequisites for ensuring the appropriate conditions for development, peace and security in Rwanda.
Due to its remarkable achievement in the area of governance and rule of law, along with its good track record in data generation on governance-related indicators through research conducted by Rwanda Governance Board, the Government of Rwanda is taking the lead on the continent in piloting the formulation of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the area of Governance (Goal 16).
The SDGs come at a time when Rwanda is making impressive socioeconomic gains, build on the achievements registered by the MDGs. They also help to provide a comparative framework for Rwanda’s progress in relation to other countries among the community of nations.
The vision of Rwanda’s leadership and guidance to ensure that the integration of MDGs into national development strategies provided the foresight that accounts, in large part, for the success that the country enjoyed in reaching many of the targets.
As has been the case with the MDGs, the Government of Rwanda is looking forward to implementing the SDGs through deepened citizen ownership and engagement.
Rwanda is prepared to not only play its part in informing this generation of SDGs but it will also ensure that the identified targets are integrated into its priority programmes.
34% SDGs targets captured in the Rwanda Governance Scorecard
Since 2011, Rwanda has produced the Rwanda Governance Scorecard (RGS) which is an annual assessment conducted by RGB to accurately gauge the status of governance and accountability in the country. The RGS is used as a practical tool to provide an illustrative adaptation of Goal 16 of the SDGs to the Rwandan context.
■ 34 % of all SDGs targets are captured by RGS
■ 60 % of SDGs Goal 16 targets are already measured by RGS
■ RGS captures indicators of 12 out of 17 SDGs goals
This means that, through the RGS, Rwanda can be looked at as a case study not only for Goal 16 but for other goals too. The importance of tracking development interventions and has given credence to the idea that sustainable approaches to socioeconomic transformation require active participation and local community ownership of development processes.
RGS indicators provide both general and specific outlook of the progress that the country is taking in socioeconomic and political transformation. Development tracking in terms of the national vision (Vision 2020) and its mid-range strategies (EDPRS) ensured the successful combination of governance and development into this process of continuous assessment. This is a culture that has been entrenched in Rwanda. National development priorities have been linked to governance and then contextualised to the needs of local communities.
The pilot exercise: a learning experience
Rwanda learnt more through the pilot exercise by creating awareness about the yet to be adopted SDGs. Illustrative SDGs allowed Rwanda, through RGB, to actualise and update its own indicators of governance (RGS indicators) through citizen and leader consultations. It is in this regard that, the application of ICT in court processes was captured in RGS 2014, and legal identity for all including birth registration will be included in RGS 2015.
Enviable governance model
Rwanda’s governance model has given rise to remarkable progress in the socioeconomic and political realms. It rose from national deliberations on the kind of governance system Rwandans wanted in a post-genocide context. This model not only has been able to rebuild from total collapse of governance institutions, but it has also shown resilience in the way it has sought to build the lives of ordinary people and to bring a sense of dignity to them.
Rwanda’s experience shows that governance plays a key role in generating and consolidating development gains. More specifically, Rwanda’s experience demonstrates that governance needs to be contextualised in local realities so that people find solutions within themselves.
The unconventional approaches to unlock societal challenges have delivered results beyond expectations. Indeed, the RGS assessments have detailed the extent to which citizens are satisfied with the provisions in each governance indicator, with excellent satisfaction on most. This has been encouraged through championing of home-grown initiatives such as Umushyikirano (National Dialogue), Imihigo (Performance Contracts), Umuganda (Communal Work), Girinka (one cow per poor family), among others.
It is worth emphasising that the integration of non-conventional approaches (Home Grown Initiatives) into the National Development Planning – undergirded by transformational leadership – explains much of Rwanda’s economic growth of about 8 per cent in the last decade where over a million people were uplifted from poverty in just five years.
What this implies is that the success of the SDGs is tied to the extent to which they are incorporated into the national development vision and its various flagships. This approach requires leadership and political will as the driving forces behind development pursuits. Rwanda’s experience shows that governance needs to be contextualised in local realities so that people find solutions within themselves, and this has been encouraged through championing of home-grown initiatives.
HE Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, (centre) after inaugurating a new commercial building – the M-Peace Plaza in Kigali City
Contact
P.O Box 6819 Kigali
Email: info@rgb.rw; ceo@rgb.rw
Tel: +250 25 511 2023
Toll free line: 3520
Twitter: @RGB_rw,
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