As part of ensuring the quality of communication, effectiveness and efficiency in programme management throughout the implementation of the country’s Strategic Note 2019-2023, UN Women Rwanda organized a consultative meeting with Implementing Partners (IPs) and Responsible Parties (RPs) on 29 July 2022. The full day consultative meeting brought together close to 70 partners from Government, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) as well as private sector.

In her welcome remarks, Ms. Jennet Kem, UN Women Representative to Rwanda highlighted the expectations from the meeting which included better understanding of ‘our partnership’, networking and sharing of experiences. She concluded by expressing her wish that by the time they leave the meeting what is in UN Women shall be in them and what is in them shall be in UN Women.

The meeting enabled participating partners to understand UN women’s triple mandate (normative support, UN system coordination and operational activities) and how to mainstream this in all thematic areas of interventions and program outcomes. Partners were strengthened to align their program with UN Women priorities in the country.

This was also an opportunity for partners to network and reflect on how they can work together on overlapping areas to achieve greater results and impact towards achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in line with UN Women’s Strategic Note for the country.

Partners appreciated the get-together saying that the session helped them to know each other, which will increase collaboration. 

The meeting started with UN Women technical colleagues presenting the country program, the audit processes and outcomes. Ms. Alice Rugerandida, Programme Coordinator for UN Women presented the impact areas for each result area, outcomes, and outputs to help partners understand the areas they contribute to and their need to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability to program delivery. Mr. Gerald Handika, UN Women Operations Manager, talked about the key milestones in terms of financials, the requirements for good financial reporting and preparations for audit among others. He requested the partners to take time to read all the cooperation agreements and to ensure they understand FACE Forms in particular as it informs a big basis for a good financial accountability and transparency within UN Women financial management.

Ms. Jennet Kem, UN Women Country Representative thanked all partners for their contribution to the program delivery and for contributing to the national development and to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. She highlighted that “partners are the hands, the feet, the eyes, and the ears of UN Women on ground. That is why their efficiency in what they do contributes to UN Women’s effectiveness.” The Country Representative stressed the need for partners to understand the core mandate of UN Women, its programming cycle, the reporting milestones, and the audit requirements to be able to align and harmonize.

She underscored that the whole purpose of the collaboration between UN Women and partners was to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The workshop provided a safe open space for honest sharing about best practices, challenges, recommendations and commitment to improve collaboration for effective program delivery.

Partners highly appreciated UN Women’s support of regular capacity building sessions, engagements throughout project implementation, joint program field visits and commended availability of steering committees for projects as best practice for project sustainability.

Concluding the workshop, partners commended that the consultative meetings become bi-annual, to encourage experience sharing and transparency as well as resource mobilization. They also requested more predictable funding to support their programming for results and scale.

The UN Women Country Representative closed by appreciating the Government of Rwanda for the positive steps made in putting in place progressive laws and policies that provide strong frameworks for the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. She highlighted that persisting inequalities based on cultural practices and stereotypes continue to increase GBV incidents, inequalities in access to economic resources and lack of women participation in some key areas like the technology and innovation among others.

Ending on a high gear, partners committed to improve timely reporting and consistent alignment of interventions to the UN Women set goals and in addition, understood better that they’re not competitors among themselves but rather collaborators.