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Empowered  Lives.  Resilient  Nations.

 Amakuru ki i Rubavu? OMT Special Retreat on One UN Business Operations Strategy

Internal Newsflash, 24-27 March 2013  

Editorial Amakuru ki i Rubavu? Literally means “What are the news in Rubavu?”. This is a special newsflash produced by UNDP Communications Office as a means of internal One UN communications during the Operations Management Team’s 25th-27th March 2013 Retreat. This is a unique opportunity for Operations Team to recap and openly discuss with RC’s presence on the challenges and lessons learnt over the past UNDAF cycle and to make a roadmap in support to the One UN Programme Team and UNDAP process. During the last day of the retreat, the participants discussed on the 2013 Annual Work Plan, on the way forward to the drafting of the BoS and a team-building activity took place. Enjoy!

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Lessons from Day 3  At the beginning of the session, Helen Elangwe, Finance and Administration Officer at WFP summarized the activities done by the 5 WGs during Day 3.  

We need to play the game together  it’s important to reflect on how we can monitor our results through the use of M&E tools such as DI Monitor, which would help us monitor progress of our outcomes set during this retreat. It’s important also to be very realistic in that we have five deliverable years, so we should split all the deliverables over that period of time. The coordination of the One UN operational department’s work starts at the bottom at the supplier-level to the various working groups, and from the WGs to OMT, and OMT reports to the UNCT. The work of WGs cannot be carried by some people alone. It’s important that we all contribute. There is a beauty in getting inputs from everybody and there is an added value to that. It’s important that head of agencies appoint representatives from their respective agencies to each WG.  “We  need  to  play  the  game  together”.

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Finalization of OMT Annual Plans  The WGs sat together for an hour to discuss and prepare the individual Annual WGs’ for 2013-2018.  

Wrap Up of the Retreat WGs Work Sessions by the Facilitator  Anders Voigt commended all the participants for their active contributions during the 4 days of the retreat and officially closed the retreat’s working sessions by introducing the last two activities: Janvier’s Hypnotism Session and a teambuilding exercise. He said that WGs that had not had enough time to finalize their work during the retreat were invited to finalize it back in Kigali and share their resolutions with the OMT.

Janvier’s Leadership Inspirational Session As all the participants were asked to sit on the floor, relax and close their eyes, while playing a background music and reciting a poem, Janvier asked them to remember the learning process they had during the retreat and their contribution to the DaO in Rwanda.  “Imagine the increasing number of poor people for whom we committed to work

for! Imagine the impact we can make by being more relevant, reducing operational costs and saving more resources to fight poverty! Imagine the incredible network that we built during this retreat! Imagine the renewed commitment to work better, operating as one and contributing to effective programme delivery! Imagine the incredible result that our OMT will be reaching at the end of 2018! Imagine yourself as an agent of change in your DaO environment!” said Janvier to the participants of the 2013 OMT Retreat. He urged each of them to better support, participate, and collaborate more in their respective WGs. This exercise was organized for all the participants to remember everything they learned and recall all the important information from the 4-day retreat.    

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Learning to Work Together Better Through Team Building

The OMT Retreat 2013 was concluded with a teambuilding exercise, which brought delight to the OMT 2013 participants. During this exercise participants learned different team values, namely communicating, listening to each other; and working on a project together as a team, through making the right decisions, anticipating together risks, suggesting creative solutions, and promoting participation of all members of the team. During the first exercise, each participant was given the name of one of two animals, the cat or the chicken. They were then asked to blindfold, then to imitate the sound of the animals they had been given, and to mingle with the other participants who imitated the same sound in order to create 2 groups. In the second activity, each group was given a bucket full of polluted water and a rubberized ring held by six cords. They were then given instructions by chosen group leaders, Helen and Happy, that they had to carry the bucket to pull the water in an empty bucket, which was positioned a bit further, without pulling it down. In bringing the polluted water to that empty bucket, they had to go through two difficult situations. They could only pull up the polluted water bucket with the use of the rubberized ring held by 6 volunteers. The two groups were very creative in finding the solutions to their enigma before starting the exercise, and they both succeeded on the first trial. As Janvier Wussinu had promised during the opening session, the retreat turned out to be a success on the overall!