With UN support, Rwanda military facility becomes technology training centre

A former military school and barracks in Kigali have been transformed into a training centre where students learn everything from more efficient candle-making and civil engineering to computer technology and food science, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said today.

UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, who is currently on official mission in Rwanda, visited the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) yesterday where nearly 1,600 full-time students and about 1,160 part-time students are enrolled. About 27 per cent of the KIST students are women.

The Government of Rwanda launched the institute in 1997 with support from UNDP after the genocide of 1994, when many of the country's technical experts were killed or never accounted for. UNDP says even today, 94 per cent of the population in Rwanda lives in rural areas as most make their living in agriculture, using rudimentary traditional technology. The first class of KIST students graduated earlier this year with most of them returning to their home towns and villages to start small businesses and spread new and appropriate technologies.

KIST offers three- and four-year programmes in agricultural technologies and information technology, management and automotive technology, among other courses. Through the school of continuing education and the African Virtual University, students are able to tailor academic programmes to meet their special needs, UNDP said.

In addition to its academic courses, KIST’s Centre for Innovations and Technology Transfer conducts research to develop environmentally-friendly technological innovations – such as solar power to heat water, fuel-saving bread ovens and food processors to lighten the work of farm families – and find ways to transfer them to rural communities.

Following his tour of the centre, Mr. Malloch Brown was told by the Rwandan Finance Minister, Donald Kaberuka, that the Centre had faced early resistance from the population. “When it started,” the Minister told the UNDP Administrator, “UNDP was criticized for getting involved with KIST. People said, ‘This is elite education. What is UNDP doing in higher education?’ Now, we’re laughing all the way to knowledge.”

Mr. Malloch Brown said that he was so impressed by what he saw at the centre that he would like to see the KIST model replicated on a small scale in rural areas. “UNDP has strongly advocated making sure that the so-called digital divide doesn’t widen,” he said. “In a sense, the aptitude for information and communications technology in a society is a good indication of the aptitude for change.”