Call for strong trio collaboration in advancing Istanbul principles in Rwanda

By Elias Hakizimana.

Members of Rwanda Civil Society Platform (RCSP) have reminded Government and private sector to give hands to Civil Society Organizations in fast tracking effectiveness of implantation of the Istanbul principles.

The CSO Open Forum adopted the Istanbul Principles in 2010, following intensive Consultative meetings on the regional and national levels held with civil society stakeholders from around the world and more than 3500 organizations participated in the process.

Speaking during a National Dialogue on Status of CSO Effectiveness towards Implementation of Istanbul Principles on Friday, May 20, 2022, Angelique Kabeza, Executive Secretary of Rwanda Civil Society Platform (RCSP) said that the Istanbul Principles are key indicators of CSOs’ daily activities while striving for development of Rwandans.

The dialogue brought together senior officials from Rwanda Development Organization (RDO), Reality of Aid-Africa Network and Rwanda Civil Society Platform (RCSP).

Kabeza identified some major challenges that hinder CSOs effectiveness towards implementation of these principles.

“Some bottlenecks that hinder the success of our responsibilities include lack of enough funds and skills gap among CSOs staff as well as low collaboration are still preventing us to fast track the development we need.” She said.

“To be able to go where we need to go and to complement the national priorities, Civil Society, Government and Private Sector must go together as the three cooking stones. Once one stone is very small, the pot will not be supported and food will not be cooked well. We have to challenge between ourselves to see what we can help each other to achieve development goals.” Kabeza noted.

Kabeza said that CSOs members need capacity building in proposal writing so that they first of all identify what are the prior issues to advocate for and to mobilize funds for following what Rwandans need.

Eugene Rwibasira, Executive Director of Rwanda Development Organization (RDO) whose role is mainly focused on resources mobilization said that the national dialogue was to assess the Status of CSO Effectiveness towards Implementation of Istanbul Principles.

“We have seen some gaps, achievements and we have established the way forward to tackle these gaps.” He said.

The eight (8) Istanbul principles that CSOs have to implement are: Respect and promote human rights and social justice (1), Embody gender equality and equity while promoting women and girls’ rights (2), Focus on people’s empowerment, democratic ownership and participation (3), Promote environmental sustainability (4), Practice transparency and accountability (5), Pursue equitable partnerships and solidarity (6), Create and share knowledge and commit to mutual learning (7) and Commit to realizing positive sustainable change (8).

Rwibasira said that despites lack of capacity building skills of CSOs members to write proposal for resource mobilization, donors are also not regular and don’t treat CSOs equally.

“Some CSOs are handled well by donors while others are not well handled. Another issue is that their information is not easy to access and there are many obstacles and challenging issues in fund resource mobilization’s process.” Rwibasira said.

“We need to build capacity of CSOs members to write good proposals for grants and discuss with donors to be sure that they will change working strategy in supporting CSOs. Additionally, we need to boost information sharing because the relationship between Rwanda’s CSOs and donors is based on funds, not on development policy.” He added.

The three cooking stones namely civil society, Government and private sector can bring positive changes and contribute towards effective implementation of the Istanbul principles once they join hands according to Rwibasira.

“Currently, the problem is inequality of the three stones as civil society is low, the government is very high and the private is equally high but not as high as the government. So, our stones are not at the same level, we need to make our levels’ ground the same.” He noted.

Vitalice Meja, the representative of REALITY OF AID-Africa Network, a Pan-African organization working on development cooperation and on enabling environment for civil society in Africa advised CSOs to mobilize other stakeholders including Government and private sector to create enabling conditions and environment for their own effectiveness.

“Otherwise civil society organizations on their own cannot be able to do it, and as we said as we have the three cooking stones, it is only possible to cook well when all the stones are strong. So, government and donors must enable CSOs to boost their effectiveness.” Meja said.

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