The journey of a Human Resource Managers’ Association

It’s now about two years ago that the Rwandan Human Resource Management Association (RHRM[A]GRHR) is operational countrywide. Founded early in 2007 with the help of the former Minister of Public Servant and Labour Professor NSHUTI Manasseh, the association is meant to improve Human Resource function to ensure HR is recognized as an important asset in developing and executing organizational strategy. Created with the mission of “playing a big role in improvement of human resources management in Rwanda”, the association is now legally registered with the Ministry of Justice with about 60 members who are operating in both public and private sectors as HR practitioners, managers and consultants with possibility to expand the membership also to the students in HR related departments within universities, colleges and Institutes. Though the association had been operating, the official lunching ceremony was on November 1, 2008 with the Guest of Honour Mr. Marc KABANDANA, the General Director of the Rwandan Institute of Administration and Management (RIAM). When addressing the audience, Mr. Kabandana appreciated the initiative of creating the association and emphasized the importance of human capital especially for countries like Rwanda which do not have enough resources but relaying on its human resources and urged the association to play the role of mo blazing skills to ensure high performance. The guest of Honour noted also that the Rwandan human capital has to be considered with high importance as Rwanda is being integrated into regional communities such as East African Community (EAC) where human resource management aspect has improved to reach high level of performance. It was such amazing to have HR Managers gathering and create an association to enhance and make human resource management effective and more professional. In accordance with its vision of “Ensuring that in Rwanda the Human Resources Management be exemplary at the international level’’ , the Rwandan Human Resource Managers’ Association has now got credibility of joining the African Federation of Human Resource Management Association (AFHRMA) and World Federation of Personnel Management Associations (WFPMA). This occurred on April 23-24, 2009 in Kampala where both AFHRMA and WFPMA were holding their annual Board Meetings upon the « Africa HR Conference, 2009 » with Rwanda HR association delegation attendance. The conference was gathering a big number (about five hundred) of HR field oriented people from all over the world. In her speech while opening the conference, Uganda Minister of Labor on behalf of Right Honourable Prime Minister of Uganda, Prof. Apollo NSIBAMBI, who could not attend the conference as previously planned, stated : «I want to thank the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations Board for selecting Uganda as a venue for its board meeting whereby a number of policy issues that affect HR will be discussed and rolled out. » Apart from the Africa HR conference themed “Leadership Development: A challenge for organizations”, during the two days session, Kampala hosted at the same time board meetings for AFHRMA and WFPMA. The first gathered Member countries representatives among others: Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Senegal, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mauritius and Rwanda whose application was in progress and was approved at that occasion. It is now an opportunity given to Rwanda to share HR experience and challenge with other countries all over the world and learn from them in order to overcome multiple gaps in the field of Human Resource which must play a big role in the development of the country. This falls in the line of the statement of the guest of Honor, when she said “I was extremely happy when I saw the theme of this conference, and more so having this theme at this particular moment where there is a global economic crisis. There is no better time than now for us to focus our attention on Leadership development since most of answers that will be seeking for if we are to overcome the global economic crisis and have a better world to live in lies squarely in good leadership”. Among so many resolutions from the two federations Board Meetings, for the first time in the history, Africa was given a go ahead to host Global HR Conference in 2014. There is now requirement for Africa to raise US$ 30,000 to host such a conference and AFHRMA member countries are to state readiness to bid for hosting this conference. Rwanda has requested to be on bidding countries and the request was approved. Ends