Kigali, September, 19, 2013-UNICEF, Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF) and National Commission for Children (NCC) organized a "retreat" in Kigali to discuss on the progress and results achieved over the past years as well as key trends and challenges in programmes implementation. The event brought together high level representatives of MIGEPROF, NCC and UNICEF. According to the Minister of MIGEPROF, Odda Gasinzigwa, the importance of partnership is for leveraging resources, building collaboration, strengthening the child care and family promotion systems, and achieving meaningful community change to protect children rights.

The Minister of MIGEPROF is convinced that partnership is the key to opening up new ways to sustainably protect the interests of a child and family. MIGEPROF is therefore leveraging its position as a national body to help connect all policies of child care and family promotion structures through partnership and coordination.

To enhance child care and family promotion, the government of Rwanda has joined hands with UNICEF and other partners for sustainable results. During the retreat employees from the three organizations had the opportunity to learn more about each other’s current priorities and propose strategic interventions to attain expected results.

On her part, the representative of UNICEF, Noalla Skinner said full collaboration, includes not only the exchange of information, altering activities and sharing resources, but also enhancing the capacity of other partners for mutual benefit and to achieve a common purpose of protecting children rights and promoting family.

She added that the retreat will facilitate taking the three institutions special working relationship to a higher level during the implementation of the new cycle of EDPRS 2, UNICEF five years program of cooperation to support the government of Rwanda in child rights protection. “You cannot divide a child, therefore, we need to work together to protect this child’s rights in all spheres of life and the collaboration we have is a true model of partnership,” said the representative of UNICEF.

During the discussions, all stakeholders agreed that the focus of building strong child care and family promotion structures are significant and therefore partnership is crucial for success.

In her closing remarks, the Permanent secretary of MIGEPROF, Henriette Umulisa, said, “the retreat provided us an excellent opportunity to strengthen this partnership and to identify ways of improving the quality and sustainability of our interventions in child care and family promotion in Rwanda".

At the end of the retreat a technical team comprised of employees from the three institutions was formed to develop a joint action plan that is budgeted as a means to advance partnership