CLOSING TALKING POINTS by Minister Johnston Busingye

CLOSING – TALKING POINTS by Minister Johnston Busingye

2ndInternational Conference on Democratic Governance in Africa, Asia, and Middle East:

Accountability and Youth Engagement for Sustainable Development

Serena Hotel, July 02, 2014,

Kigali, Rwanda

It is a great pleasure for me to be with you this afternoon, as we conclude this important event; the second International Conference on Democratic Governance in Africa, Asia and Middle East which focused on the themes: Accountability and Youth Engagement for Sustainable Development;

I want to extend sincere appreciation to all of you for the valuable inputs and exchanges that put the discussed topics under rigorous scrutiny. Many lessons learnt and good practices on how best we can advance good governance in Africa, Asia and the Middle East ;

In particular, I would like to thank the visiting and partnering institutions who have strongly supported this conference particularly Cheyney University from USA, One-UN/UNDP-Rwanda, ICGLR Regional Centre for promotion of democracy and Good governance based in Lusaka , and seasoned researchers for the invaluable support and expertise;

/ LRMC/ICGLR

Rwanda Governance Board has been mandated among other things to spear head governance research, document and assess the impact of Home grown initiatives and exchanges with institutions from Rwanda, the region and even globally on issues related to Good Governance. The organisation of this conference falls therefore under RGB’s mission;
I want to congratulate RGB for executing this noble responsibility of engaging global governance stake holders and think tanks and i want to encourage thecontinuity of this engagement and networking especially on lessons, experiences in Africa, Asia and the middle east

This conference preceded the national liberation and wish to invite everyone to participate in this important national cerebration which to the Rwandans is a paramount

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Democracy and governance should aim at transforming people’s lives and catalyze national development

I therefore want to thank you for the relevant resolutions of this conference especially in regards to our main topics: accountability and Youth for sustainable development;

We have concluded that democratic governance as an indispensable tool for development that must be respected and promoted. However, like democracy itself, it is not a single, uniform concept, but rather one that needs to be adapted and tailored to each particular context, situation and mindset;

Governance based on evidence needs to be enhanced, we need to generate our own data so that we can determine on our own what works and what does not. By this we need to invest our resources in the data collection and analytical competencies for policy advocacy and advancement;

Providing feedback on citizens’ satisfaction with services delivered to them. Sector performance assessment by countries is crucial. Tools such as Rwanda’s Citizen Report Card might be some of the good practices in this field;

Ladies and gentlemen,

These are a few tools that will help usto enhance accountability within the notion of Democratic Governance. Thenew realities and changing societal dynamics require new approaches, new tools of evaluations, which should be made available to the policy makers and explained to the public;

Different forms of accountability such as leadership accountability, horizontal and vertical accountability, societal accountability, accountability of leaders to citizens and so on need to be promoted through professional media, appropriate governmental policies and CSOs;

I am glad about the extentof discussions on the topic ofYouth Engagement in Governance. The increasing role of youth in the national, regional but even global political order is strong today more than ever before. We have reiterated the need to have an inclusive system that ensures the voices of youth, women and many others frequently overlooked in the national and even regional debates. I am convinced that many practical tools for inclusiveness and participation have been explored and we take them back home into our own contexts;

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentleman;

It is our humble ambition that the outcomes of this conference will help to utilize governance for the increase of well-being of our societies and citizens. The nexus between Governance and development and how scholars should contribute to the areas of democracy, media development and many others will help in improving the socio-economic frameworks and will hopefully further advance peace and stability.

All fundamentals have been put in place to enable us movingto the next stage of development. We as policy makers must ensure that our peoples mindset and attitudes are ready for change so that we can think big!;

Once more, I will underscore the importance of Good leadership that provides an anchor to institutional development and development of a good home-made ‘marshal plan’ for our own people so that our countries can flourish;

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentleman;

Let me conclude with once more thanking the organizers to make this pertinent forum happen. It is my sincere believe that we will meet in this framework again;

With these remarks I am glad to declare the “second International Conference on Democratic Governance in Africa, Asia, and Middle East: Accountability and Youth Engagement for Sustainable Development”for officially closed

MURAKOZE!!! Thank you very much!!!