BUJUMBURA, November 8th (ABP) – Burundi, in collaboration with the country team of the United Nations system in Burundi, celebrated United Nations Day on Monday afternoon, November 4, 2024.
In her opening remarks, the resident coordinator of the United Nations system in Burundi, Violet Kakyomya, indicated that Burundi’s commitment is to contribute to the world’s major orientations, by bringing about the orientations and decisions that are taken at global level. For Kakyomya, the celebration of that day is an opportunity for the United Nations system to renew its commitment to working with Burundi to implement its decisions at national level.
A round table discussion was organized by various representatives of organizations within the United Nations system in Burundi, in which they answered various questions from journalists.
Regarding the strengthening of information technologies in Burundi, UNDP Resident Representative Mathieu Ciowela explained that it is obvious to accelerate the march towards achieving the SDGs in the sense of promoting digitalization and innovations. If societies are digitalized, he added, we have governance that is open and accessible to people wherever they are.
According to Ciowela, the United Nations has been working with the government of Burundi for the past two years, through the Ministry of Communication, New Technologies and Information, to draw up master plans for the country’s digitalization.
For that reason, Ciowela points out, it’s time for Burundi to have federating documents within which all the initiatives can be illustrated. And all those initiatives need to be integrated at some point, he pointed out.
In Burundi, there are many initiatives already underway, including civil status, birth registration, biometric identity cards, and the launch of the communal tax collection application, to name but a few. When it comes to digitization, at national level we need to ensure that initiatives are interoperable. For the United Nations system, as Ciwelo pointed out, the aim is to support the government and the population without leaving anyone on the sidelines.
In response to the question of how far Burundi has come towards achieving the 2030 MDGs, UNFPA representative Judicaël Elidje pointed out that Burundi, like almost all African countries, is behind on almost all the MDGs. For him, the major cause of those failures is the lack of funding. “There’s not much time left until 2030. If we never get financing, we’ll have to hit all the targets that will accelerate the implementation of the SDGs”; he concluded.