LocationsMay 16, 2019 - The signing ceremony marked the beginning of a four-year (2019-2022) agreement between UNDP, UNFPA, Rwanda’s Ministry of Youth, and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). During the next four years KOICA has committed to support the scaling-up of the YouthConnekt initiative with a budget of USD $7,500,000 (approximately RWF 6.8 billion). With this support, YouthConnekt will expand its goals in three main areas—increasing youth (girls and boys) access to decent jobs in Rwanda, empowering youth to fully engage in policy-making and civic activities and increasing the number of youth using health services and adopting healthy lifestyle practices.
See below the full remarks by the Resident representative:
Honorable Minister of Youth,
H.E Ambassador of the Republic of Korea
Honorable KOICA Country Director
Honorable Director General of NIRDA
Dear Chairman of Liquid Telecom Rwanda
Colleagues from the One UN Family,
It is an immense pleasure and honor for me to sign this agreement with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for the scaling-up of the YouthConnekt Rwanda initiative through a 4-year programme (2019-2022) with a budget of USD 7,500,000.
Allow me to recognize the presence of H.E KIM Eung-joong, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea and Mr Lee BYUNGHWA, KOICA Rwanda office Country Director. Since 2010, KOICA has been a strong and committed partner of UNDP and the One UN familly. Both UNDP and UNFPA have established an excellent relationship with KOICA in different areas such as the building an Inclusive Financial Sector in Rwanda (BIFSIR) programme, the Saemaul Initiative, Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health services, etc. We are confident that this fruitful partnership will continue through the support to the scaling-up of the YouthConnekt and i-accelerator initiatives.
This new programme seeks to extend the YouthConnekt achievements to reach three key objectives:
(1) Increased number of youth (girls and boys) access to decent jobs in Rwanda; (2) Empowerment of youth to fully engage in policy-making and civic activities; and (3) increased number of youth using health services and adopting healthy lifestyle practices.
More specifically, this 4-year intervention further aims to:
-Scale-up the successful YouthConnekt entrepreneurship component - our aim is to create more than 20,000 decent jobs. We will do this by providing technical and financial support to youth including those in rural areas, youth in TVET and Higher learning institutions, young women, youth in the arts and creative industry, young entrepreneurs in national incubators and accelerator programs.
- Provide technical support to the national incubator and accelerator programmes – here our aim is simply to identify the capacity needs of the labs and improve their capacity to provide top quality services to young entrepreneurs.
- Strengthen the partnership with the private sector and other national stakeholders.
- Through partnership between UNFPA and Imbuto foundation, support the scaling-up of the I-accelerator initiative, a business acceleration program aimed at developing solutions to address sexual reproductive health (SRH) issues faced by Rwanda youth.
Honorable Minister, your excellency Ambassador, Chairman of Liquid Telecom, NIRDA Director General, dear UNFPA Representative, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me once again express my sincere gratitude to the Government of Rwanda and all the YouthConnekt partners for the progress and achievements made to empower Rwandan youth. I also wish to reiterate UNDP Commitment to continue providing support to the GoR in collaboration with all national partners to the scaling-up of this innovative initiative.
