The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Rwanda, Fodé Ndiaye, on Friday commended the inclusive approach that the country adopted to implement recommendations from the UN Human Rights Council. Ndiaye made the observation during a two-day retreat by the Ministry of Justice and stakeholders in the human rights field in Rubavu District. The retreat aimed at reviewing the implementation of recommendations made to Rwanda under a framework known as Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Rwanda has appeared before the Human Rights Council UPR Working Group for the last three years and accepted to implement 50 of the 83 recommendations before the next cycle due November 2020. The rejected recommendations were found to be incompatible with domestic laws and the Constitution, said officials. The Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Johnston Busingye, told journalists that since then the off-cuff evaluation shows that Rwanda has implemented 60 per cent of the recommendations. He noted that Rwanda preferred putting forward many actors to implement the UPR recommendations to ensure that the citizens’ voice is heard as the recommendations adopted reflect the wellbeing of Rwandans. “We try to be as inclusive as possible because, in the end, what we present should not just be a report by the Government, it should be a report that has taken four years to compile and reflecting the actual reality on the ground,” Busingye said “We don’t do this for anybody outside Rwanda, we do it for Rwandans,” the minister added. The media, access to justice and the civil society are among other stakeholders who are currently working with the Ministry of Justice to implement and publicise the UPR recommendations. Ndiaye noted that the approach that Rwanda adopted on the UPR recommendations matched with the UN values on promoting human rights. “For us at the UN, human rights underpin everything that we are doing, it underpins the charter of the UN, it underpins the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda and we are convinced that Rwanda is not doing it for the sake of the institution; Rwanda is doing it for the sake of its own people,” Fodé Ndiaye told The New Times. “We need inclusiveness of the process, having all the stakeholders coming together because we strongly believe that human rights are shared responsibilities and we know through for the implementation of the recommendations that Rwanda has voluntarily accepted to implement”. Ndiaye promised that UN will keep working with Rwanda in promoting the human rights through capacity building, among others. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
