C’wealth Africa states can learn from Rwanda

In order for African Commonwealth member states to improve their good performance and service delivery, they have to emulate Rwanda and adopt political will.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

In order for African Commonwealth member states to improve their good performance and service delivery, they have to emulate Rwanda and adopt political will.This was said during a Commonwealth Point of Contact meeting held in Kigali on Friday. The meeting brought together public service permanent secretaries from Commonwealth Africa member states.Speaking at the closing of the meeting, Dunstan Maina, Adviser of East Africa on governance and institutional development division at the Commonwealth Secretariat, said it was high time Africa recognised the importance of political will in order to improve on strengthening public sector administration reforms."Members should now learn from Rwanda’s experience on how she has registered tremendous developments in such a short time after her horrible history,” said Maina.  "And we have acknowledged that all these achievements were registered by the existing political will in this country. Every public servant has a passion to develop the country”.The meeting was meant to share experiences, review current developments and reach an agreement on common approaches and strategies for strengthening partnership between member states and the Commonwealth Secretariat for enhanced performance in public sector development.It resolved that there was need to establish a strong public sector that will create sustainable development and affirmed that the Secretariat had a critical role to play in enhancing the effectiveness of public administration in Africa to attain democracy and development needed to be given greater emphasis. The delegates later visited Gisozi Genocide memorial site where the remains of over 250,000 bodies of Tutsis are laid to rest.