Zaara's Gender Role with UNDP Rwanda

My first two months working as a JPC in the Governance and Peace Consolidation unit for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Kigali, Rwanda have been rewarding. My primary responsibility in this role is to lead the Gender Seal activities for the country office, but I am involved in a number of areas of the UNDP functions. Some of the programs I am working on are – Access to Justice, Human Rights and Peace Consolidation, Strengthening Civil Society Organizations for Responsive and Accountable Governance and Deepening Democracy through Strengthening Citizen Participation and Accountable Governance.

 I am also actively supporting the Communications unit of UNDP and the One UN in Rwanda. Rwanda is one of the eight pilot countries for the Delivering as One (DaO) program, which unites UN Agencies in the country. To this end, the communications groups from the different agencies work together under the United Nations Communications Group (UNCG).

On the 30^th and 31^st of March I took part in a field visit conducted for the Access to Justice Program. I was responsible for writing the report for the visit, specifically capturing the images and success stories from the projects. This task gave me the opportunity to see the implementation of the programs we work on in UNDP and gave me a practical understanding of the organization’s contribution towards the development of Rwanda. UNDP has contributed to the capacity development of Community Mediators (Abunzi) which reduced backlogs in courts, scaled up access to justice, and supported the Rwanda National Police to reduce crime.

I am grateful to the UNAC and IDDIP for placing me in this team and country office. I am confident the experience will add great value to my career in international development, and I look forward to the next four months of my placement. On a more personal note, I would like to add that Kigali is a wonderful city to live in. It has beautiful climate, moderated by high altitude and breathtaking views of green, lush hills.  Riding the motorcycle on the winding streets of Kigali has so far been my favorite thing to do.