NDI to boost inter-political party democratic dialogue

The National Democratic Institute (NDI), a nonprofit, non-governmental organisation that supports democratic institutions across the world will soon start working closely with Rwandan political parties to strengthen their capacity and to boost inter-political party dialogue. The revelation was made during a meeting of members of the Forum for Political Parties held Friday at Hotel Novotel to assess the function, perception of performance and the future of political parties in Rwanda. The Forum for Political Parties is a consultative platform that brings together all political organisations in the country. In an interview with the President of Liberal Party who is also the Minister of Youth, Protais Mitali said that the latest development would increase capacity in formation of new programmes and initiating strategies for strengthening political parties and good governance. “NDI has experience in democracy and has worked in many countries worldwide, in Rwanda, NDI has worked with political parties since 2003 and so far, we have signed a memorandum of understanding of a period of one year,” said Mitali who is also the spokesperson of the Forum for Political Parties. He however added that NDI recently compiled a report which he said contained some issues that lacked facts. He said: “the report contained some issues that were not accurate and they compared our country with highly developed ones.” When approached for details of the report, the NDI Resident Country Director Gaston Ain Bilbao also refused to divulge details of this report saying that it is yet to be made public. “We still need to clean up this report and we can only do it in partnership with all political parties in Rwanda and after that is when the report will be availed to the media,” said Bilbao. NDI’s current programme in Rwanda, launched in October last year, aims at strengthening Rwanda’s political parties by supporting and reinforcing mechanisms to promote inter-party dialogue, and building political party’s capacity to organize, communicate and reach out to constituents at the grassroots level. Ends