By July 2025, Rwanda’s Prime Minister should have signed The Instructions and the Attorney General ratified the same by printing them in the Gazette. This coincides with different, relevant actors in One Health (OH) strongly coming to the fore to ensure its (OH) success in the country.
The Instructions, also known as The Prime Minister’s Instructions, were developed to provide a framework that would guide OH stakeholders in Rwanda on how to best work together.
With a goal to establish the OH governance in Rwanda, which will be made of The OH Secretariat, Multisectoral Coordination Mechanism, and Technical Working Groups, The Instructions also highlight the mission, competence and functioning of the OH governance.
As they remain unsigned and yet to be put in the Gazette, the COHESA project continued its effort to help in drawing the roadmap for successful OH landscape’s development in Rwanda with two sessions in Kigali last month: an advocacy training and media sensitization.
In the former, courtesy of The University of Global Health Equity, and with funding from the COHESA project, participants from Rwanda Biomedical Center, Rwanda Agriculture Board, Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, and Rwanda Development Board met to discuss, among other issues, The Instructions.
The team developed a systematic process to ensure the PM Instructions are signed, with a focus on a number of key steps: meeting with stakeholders to review and update the instructions, sharing the revised instructions with the Ministry of Health, submitting them to the Law Reform Commission for alignment with legal requirements, receiving feedback on language, semantics, constitutional alignment, and applicability, conducting technical reviews from the Prime Minister’s office, developing Cabinet notes, and awaiting the Cabinet decision for the PM instructions to be signed and put in the Gazette.
The second event was a two-day science café that brought together 17 journalists and 13 public health officials from the country.
Tasked with creating awareness among the public, journalists are a crucial part of the players in one health, and had their scope of knowledge widened after discussions with these public health officials.
The café, which was interesting and very engaging, involved a series of presentations that highlighted one health issues and the impact of news values on science reporting. It also involved co-creation activities such as world café where groups of journalists and public health officials were formed to discuss various questions related to telling stories of One Health.
Key themes included humanizing stories, showcasing success stories and integrating expert insights.
Through these instructions, journalists expressed some of their difficulties in reporting on One Health, including failure to get timely information related to outbreaks, and health experts often not readily sharing information with journalists, leading to the spread of misinformation.
There was a consensus on the need for continuous pairing of journalists, and for public health experts to ensure that information shared is accurate and is disseminated in a timely manner.
The public health experts shared with the journalists several open access sites and resources that they can access to get information on outbreaks and also information on various diseases of interest to enable journalists to be well informed and up to date with what is happening within the country at all times.
A highlight (and output) from this café was the development of One Health Communication Guidelines that can be adopted by journalists in Rwanda. These guidelines are designed to ensure that all communication about One Health is conducted with the highest standards of accuracy, ethical consideration, and inclusivity. They provide a framework for crafting compelling narratives, utilizing data responsibly, and integrating diverse expert perspectives.
Upcoming initiatives will focus on training more journalists, fostering stronger networks, and regularly updating the action plan to adapt to emerging one health challenges. Many players in OH in Rwanda are upbeat that better collaboration between all actors will inspire Rwandans to be more proactive.