In the second forum in a series focusing on elections, the Great Lakes Policy Forum explored Rwanda's upcoming elections. The forum reviewed political party strengthening efforts, explored electoral issues, and hosted a discussion on predictions for the election and the implications of those predictions. What will the 2010 elections mean for open democracy in Rwanda? What does this mean for the region?
The Great Lakes Policy Forum is a project of Amnesty International, USA, The Ansari Africa Center of the Atlantic Council, The Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Council on Foreign Relations Africa Policy Studies, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Africa Studies Program, Refugees International, Search for Common Ground, U.S. Institute of Peace Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Africa Program and NDI.
Speakers:
- Gaston Aín, NDI Rwanda country director: Aín directs a program that has provided organizing and communications skills to hundreds of party activists representing every registered political party. He also oversaw NDI's organization of the Youth Party Leadership Academy, a pilot project to provide young Rwandan political party activists with skills to play leading roles in Rwanda's future. NDI's projects are conducted in collaboration with the Rwandan Political Party Forum. Aín has more than 12 years of experience in politics, government and international development. Before joining NDI, he worked for the Organization of American States (OAS), where he served as adjunct director of the Secretary General's Good Offices Mission to Ecuador and Colombia. He served as chief of staff to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs at OAS from May 2007 to May 2008. In a previous position with the OAS, he worked as a political advisor to the Special Mission for Strengthening Democracy in Haiti from May 2005 to May 2006. In Haiti, Aín was responsible for helping political party leaders gain a better understanding of the electoral law and of rules and norms for observing elections and safeguarding election results. Aín also worked for the legislature and the government of the city of Buenos Aires from 2000 to 2003.
- Anastase Shyaka, executive secretary of the Rwanda Governance Advisory Council: Shyaka is currently the executive secretary of the Rwanda Governance Advisory Council, a newly established national institution mandated for promoting and monitoring good governance in public, civic and corporate domains. He received the 2007 Fulbright Award as a scholar in residence at George Mason while studying social and political change in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. He has been the chairman (Rwanda) of the National Consultative Committee on Fast Tracking the East African Political Federation and the director of the Centre for Conflict Management at the National University of Rwanda. Shyaka was also a member of the Thematic Technical Task Force for the UN-AU joint International Conference on the Great Lakes Region — Peace & Security Cluster and provided research expertise to many national institutions, including the Rwanda Parliament and various national commissions; and to international institutions, including UN agencies, AU, EAC, COMESA, and the Regional Centre for Small Arms. He has conducted studies related to electoral processes and political space in Rwanda. He has also conducted various programs of capacity building for political parties both at national and regional levels and is the lead researcher on a completed study (to be soon published by the Senate of Rwanda) on political pluralism and power sharing in Rwanda.
He has published books and articles, given papers in a wide range of conferences. Some of his publications include Performance of Past and Present Political Parties in Rwanda, UNR, 2009 (co-edited with Prof. Charles Gasarasi); Conflicts en Afrique des Grands Lacs — revue Critique des Mécanisme, Internationaux/ Conflicts in the Great Lakes of Africa: Critical Review of International Mechanisms, UNR, 2004; Rwanda: Identité et Citoyenneté, UNR, 2003 ( co-edited with Prof Rutembesa Faustin and Prof Josias Semujanga); Conflits en Afrique des Grands Lacs et Esquisse de leur Résolution, 2003.
- Susan Page, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of African Affairs: Page is a Harvard-trained lawyer with 22 years of experience and spent 15 consecutive years working and living throughout sub-Saharan Africa. She has served as a political officer, legal advisor, and diplomat with the U.S. State Department, USAID and the United Nations. She has testified before Congressional committees, served on numerous panels and been interviewed by media outlets such as BBC (TV), Radio France International, NPR and VOA on a range of African issues. She is a fluent French speaker.
Prior to this assignment, Page was regional director for Southern and East Africa at NDI. From 2002-2005, Page served as the legal advisor to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Secretariat for Peace in Sudan sponsored by the State Department. During this period, she was an integral member of the IGAD-led mediation process and was instrumental in negotiating and drafting key provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) for the Sudan.
Page received an A.B. in English with high distinction from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She has also studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland and conducted research on children and women's rights in Nepal through a Rotary International post-graduate fellowship.
- Nancy Welch, program officer, National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Welch oversees and evaluates grants to grassroots civil society organizations in the Great Lakes region, particularly Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda, where she has worked and traveled extensively. Prior to joining the NED, Welch assisted the financial services and integrated rural development department at ACDI/VOCA in Washington, D.C., and worked on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and democracy and governance programs at the USAID mission in the DRC. While living in Dakar, Senegal, Welch helped design educational programming and promoted regional arms control initiatives at the Mouvement Contre les Armes Légères en Afrique de l'Ouest. She holds a B.A. in French and sociology from Goucher College, MD.
Moderator:
- Martin Kimani, deputy director, Ansari Africa Center at the Atlantic Council: In addition to his work at the Atlatic Council, Martin is an associate fellow at the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King's College London where he wrote his doctorate on the role of religion and race in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Prior to his recent return to London, Martin served in a senior advisory position to a regional security program for the six member states of the InterGovernmental Authority on Development in the Horn of Africa. He simultaneously held the position of senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies. The stint in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was preceded by his work as head of the Africa Division at Exclusive Analysis Ltd., a provider of political risk analysis and forecasting to Lloyd's of London and as a teaching fellow at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College. Martin has published in the Guardian, Granta Magazine, The East African, Süddeutschen Zeitung, Chimurenga, Farafina and Juxtapoz. He also comments on development policy, conflict and terrorism on various BBC television and radio shows and in Australia, New Zealand, Kenya and Rwanda. He is a fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and is on the board of Storymoja Africa, a regional publishing company.
