The Mayors Come to Class: Rwanda Seeks University-Community Alignment

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame recently issued a challenge to his country's universities: respond to the needs of your local communities, or render yourselves out of touch with national priorities. His call for universities to become more involved in their local communities as "active agents of development" came in a speech to faculty and students at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) on May 16, 2011. President Kagame called for a return to the core mission of universities, saying, "At the core of every universities' mission is the pursuit of new knowledge, seeking new ways of doing new things to meet present and future challenges. The crucial question for us as a nation and for you as students at this university is how NUR is positioning itself to do this." Kagame looks to a future when people and institutions are less reliant on government to overcome obstacles as they attain the skills and motivation to become a driving force for modernization themselves. It's not an easy task, he admitted, as he posed a difficult challenge and even criticism of NUR faculty and students: "To undertake this responsibility requires that you adopt a new mentality that permits you to turn ideas and knowledge into tools of transformation. This also means that scholars do not have the luxury of living in the so-called ivory tower. You have to be practical and in touch with the realities on the ground to find solutions to our country's many challenges."

NUR immediately answered the call. University President, Silas Lwakabamba asked department heads to incorporate local community development plans into their mandatory annual planning. Next he convened a June 10, 2011, meeting for NUR leaders to sit down face to face with district heads from the Southern Province, including the newly appointed governor of the province, Alphonse Munyantwali. The meeting would offer a chance to ask leaders directly how the university can better use its resources to solve the problems they confront on a daily basis, problems like water availability, inconsistent agricultural productivity, and inadequate health service delivery. The leaders traveled to the university intent on shattering conceptions of an ivory tower insulated from the needs of "average Rwandans." If successful, the meeting would illuminate a clear pathway toward increased university engagement with the local community.

In Rwanda to train the inaugural LINK winners at the National University of Rwanda's Faculty of Agriculture, the GKI team received a special request from the University's President who invited us to present our approach to Locate, Enable, and Connect partners to Solve shared development challenges. Compelled by GKI's approach to mapping complex development challenges and navigating pathways to partnership within those complex landscapes, Lwakabamba expressed his optimism that with GKI's inclusion, a better outcome might emerge. Program Officer Amanda Rose represented the Global Knowledge Initiative during the occasion.

Rose began her presentation with an assessment of the opportunity before the group: "You are going to hear a lot today," she said. "You are going to hear from the mayors, the governor, the rector, and from many departments and offices from within the university. It's all going to sound really exciting and beneficial—but what does that mean for you? How do you start to translate these great ideas into a plan?" Rose told NUR faculty and the Rwandan political leaders that they needed more than just ideas; they needed a pathway. She also introduced challenge-mapping as a tool for consensus building and partnership identification. The group mapped a critical challenge as identified in a recent community engagement survey of district business owners and residents that was conducted by NUR: "How might we improve the business administration and management skills of [farming] cooperatives?"

This first step toward university-community engagement constituted a small but positive step forward. GKI looks forward to continuing its involvement in this critical planning process when the team returns to Rwanda in September. According to Rose, "This is an area where support is needed…There are great visions, but turning them into a practical approach to promoting education, especially in resource-poor environments, is not trivial. How do you have a plan that moves you efficiently through the process and builds communities of action working together? It is not something that happens without some focused effort," she said. "I think that a facilitator is a necessary component of success."

Governor Munyantwali expressed a similar sentiment, stating that a more technical meeting is required in the future to concretize plans and that while "the mayors are always aware of their challenges and opportunities, we really need a closer collaboration." Lwakabamba agreed, stressing that this meeting was the first of many interactions NUR would sponsor with local leaders over the coming years.

Contributor: Christina Golubski

Photo: Amanda Rose