Regional
Innovation; key take away from RPF Youth League Congress
It was full house at the iconic Intare Conference Arena in
Rusororo, as members of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) Youth league recently met
to take stock of their achievements in the last five years and to plan for the
next two.
Generally, the youth lauded the country’s leadership for creating
an enabling environment for innovation to take place.
The RPF youth congress is a bi-annual gathering that attracts
party youth leaders from its structures, grass roots level, up to the national
level, as well as young professionals in various sectors.
The youth in RPF are not peripheral actors. They are directly
involved in the country’s development, and this is part of the political
philosophy of RPF-Inkotanyi.
Before we delve into the specifics of data and facts, it is
important to laud the country’s leadership that deliberately opted to engage
the youth in national politics. In Africa and other parts of the world, important
demographic groups such as youth and women, have always been politicized and
depoliticized depending on trending political events, mostly around elections
and special political campaigns.
The purpose of the politicization of these two groups has always
been to attract as many votes as they both represent a very large base. As soon
as elections are over, the trend in some parts of the world has always been to
push these groups on the side, a move that has had consequences in the
social-economic development of countries.
In Rwanda, the politicization of the youth and women is a
deliberate and strategic choice informed by the country’s resolve to achieve
inclusive sustainable development. There is scientific consideration of
demographic factors in the whole socio-economic development calculation as
well.
To put it in simple terms, you cannot hope to attain sustainable
socio-economic development where you have not engaged majority of the
population in decision making or drawing strategies that deliver. This can be
compared to building your house on sand.
Back to the RPF Youth Congress. Over the last five years, 153
youth based companies are implementing the country’s road maintenance program.
They are currently operating in 26 districts across the country except in the
City of Kigali and Nyamasheke district.
So far, 467 youths who are members of these companies, mostly
professionals in engineering, technicians in various fields and accountants secured
permanent jobs from these joint programs. An exciting 7,760 youths secured
temporary employment, mostly from the routine maintenance of unpaved road
scheme of the project.
Throughout the course of this project, youth-led companies
acquired some construction equipment such as small compactor machines and other
equipment from existing micro leasing schemes.
In other sectors of country’s priorities, the figures were equally
interesting. Since September 2019, more than 10,000 youths enrolled in the Eco
brigade project, a joint ecosystem protection initiative between the Ministry
of Youth, the Ministry of Environment and other partners such as the Local
Administrative Entities (LODA), UNDP and KOICA. Their main areas of
intervention are in radical and progressive terraces, forestation, resilient
agriculture and financial literacy.
Finally, the celebrated Youth Connekt awards contributed in the
creation of 8,022 jobs for the youths since 2019. A total of 384 competitive
and innovative youth businesses have been financially awarded and continue to
contribute in addressing unemployment amongst the youths as well as encouraging
innovation.
The general observation from the RPF Youth Congress is that; in
Rwanda, the youth are a critical constituent of the nation’s considerations and
are important stakeholders of national development program.
Capacity building of the youth through inclusive national policies
contributed to youth development, and continues to be a critical consideration
of national politics.
When the youth benefit from national politics, the country benefits
even more. Sustaining the current rhythm remains a generational challenge of
our youths.