Leadership Management and Governance (LMG), a USAID-funded project started in 2013 aiming at strengthening Rwanda National Commission for Children’s institutional capacity and ability to fulfill its mandate of monitoring, coordinating and overseeing the child protection system.
During its closing ceremonies held in January, 2017 in Kigali, NCC’s staff commends the program for having improved their capacity and skills while working toward three key result areas which were the focus of the project.
The three areas are the development of a mechanism that defines responsibilities for implementing the Integrated Child Rights Policy (ICRP), strengthening data collection, analysis, storage, and use and strengthening regular coordination across the child protection system.
While working on these result areas, this approach of learning by doing project equipped NCC staff with strong skills that helped them to develop different tools that will enable NCC to fulfill its mandate.
“As a guidelines team, we designed guidelines outlining obligations for implementation and monitoring of 7 areas of integrated child rights policy (ICRP)” said Lambert Hategekimanathe guidelines team leader.
“We established a mechanism to regularly convene partners involved in child protection at all levels of the system” Said James Nduwayo while presenting the achievements of the coordination team
The Management Information System (MIS) team developed an integrated information management system that can be used for multiple strategic purposes, including: program planning; ICRP data collection and information sharing; stakeholder and partner analysis; and routine monitoring and evaluation.
‘’We managed to design data collection and reporting formats which will help us to collect and keep information and data. This is very important in planning and decision making” Said Ernest Dusabe who is the MIS team leader
Apart from designing the tools, the project equipped NCC’s staff with strong skills that continue to drive their performance. Staff members have learnt how to work in a team, strong analysis skills, problem solving by uprooting its real causes and reporting skills among others.
“We have learnt by doing through practicing effective leadership and management skills in teams as the program were using experiential learning” revealed one of the team leaders while speaking to the media
More efforts needed for sustainability
Speaking at the closing ceremonies, Dr.Claudine Uwera Kanyamanza, the Executive Secretary of Rwanda National Commission for Children commended the teams’ achievements. She reminded every staff member and all stakeholders to take responsibilities to sustain the progress and apply the capacity building tools to other challenges in the child protection system.
“I humbly request all of you to share your thoughts and recommendations with us today and help us, as we continue to work to fulfill our mandate of overseeing, monitoring, and coordinating the child protection system. As key stakeholders and partners in this, we look to you for support and commitment to carry forward the progress we have made toward strengthening NCC’s capacity to improve the situation for Rwandan children.” She said
In her view, the sustainability will be achieved through strong commitment and collaboration.“We will have to hold regular consultations through different channels, establishing a strong evaluation mechanism and strengthen collaboration with our partners”She said, while requesting all partners to remain devoted to their commitment.
The closing ceremony was attended by many of NCC’s stakeholders who urged NCC to translate the teams’ achievements into action.
“The acquired knowledge and skills will drive NCC performance to tackle the remaining and future challenges. You have to translate them into action. You can't close the gap through one project or activity. You have to do more” Said one of them
They have pledged to support and advocate for the sustainability of LMG teams so that they continue to improve NCC performance in many years to come.
Now the tools are available, the next step is to disseminate, explain them to all stakeholders and translate them into actions.