About the Ministry
The mission of the Ministry of Sports is to develop and support the implementation of policies and strategies that promote sports development initiatives aimed at economic and social transformation.
Adress:
HALLMARK Centre, KG 17 AV/ Remera
Toll free:
Tel: (250) 788196300/ Hotline: 5858
Email:
info@minisports.gov.rw
P.O.Box:
1044 Kigali/Rwanda
Mission
The mission of the Ministry of Sports is to develop and support the implementation of policies and strategies that promote sports development initiatives aimed at economic and social transformation.
Vision
The vision is to achieve inclusive sports excellence as a nation at the individual, community, organization, and business level.
Principles and Values
As an industry, the sport needs to establish and work to a set of guiding principles/values.
Excellence – The Sports Development policy shall promote excellence as its primary objective in the development of sports.
Integrity – The Sports Development Policy will strive to build integrity among the sector’s stakeholders, athletes, coaches, managers, and federations’ leadership.
Equity and inclusiveness – the policy will promote fairness in sport, equality of access, recognition of inequalities to take steps and address them. The policy will ensure that sports become equally accessible to everyone in Rwandan society.
Accountability and Responsibility – The policy will endeavor to promote an accountability mindset and spirit for actions and decisions so that stakeholders be answerable for their programs and actions.
Values through Sports – The ultimate goal and outcome of the policy are to create sustainable values that promote Rwanda through its athletes and teams’ performances.
Respect – The policy will promote respect for Rwanda worldwide,
Enthusiasm and Commitment – The policy will promote sports enthusiasm which will build community commitment for sports development thus, attracting investment into the sector.
Inspirational Target
By 2030
Inspirational targets are set out in consideration of the perceived sports sector development outcome which Rwanda aspires to attain through implementation of set policy programs by the year 2030.
Background
Prior 1994, there existed Ministère de la Jeunesseet des Mouvements Associatifs, (MIJEUMA). At the time, culture had not yet received the much needed consideration because it was perceived not as a manifestation of the identity of Rwandans, but rather as a manifestation of the monarchy that the regime of the time regarded as the evil.
After the genocide of 1994, the department received several successive missions based on the then identified priorities.
In 1997 the Department of Culture, which was in the Ministry of Education was transferred to the Ministry of Youth. This department was responsible for organizing dignified burials of the bodies of genocide victims and all activities relating to safeguarding the memory of the genocide among other responsibilities.
Later on, the Ministry of youth was yet given another mandate; vocational training and adopted the name of Ministère de la Jeunesse Sport, Culturel et Formation Profesionnel (MIJESCAFOP)
In 2002, the vocational training mandate was given a Secretariat of State in the Ministry of Civil Service and Labor and the ministry adopted yet another name; Ministère de la Jeunesse, Sport et Culture (MIJESPOC) or Ministry of Youth, Sports and culture in English.
In 2008, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture was split into two separate ministries; Ministry of Youth ‘MINIYOUTH” and Ministry of Sports and Culture" MINISPOC ".
In May 2011, the two ministries were again merged into one ministry and once again separated in December 2011. MINISPOC was given a mandate of developing and supporting the implementation of policies and strategies concerning the promotion of a winning culture in various sports disciplines and to promote culture as foundation to the development of our country.
The ministry administered 5 agencies that support the implementation of policies related to the mandate of the ministry. These institutions are;
(i) Institute of National Museums of Rwanda,
(ii) National Library and Archives
(iii) The National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide,
(iv) Rwandan Academy of Language and Culture and
(v) The Chancellor of Heroes, National Orders and Decorations of honor.
In November 2019 the Ministry of Sports "MINISPORTS" was established after separating MINISPOC into two, where Culture department was transferred in the Ministry of Youth thus MINISPORTS remaining with Sports components
Responsibilities
The Ministry of Sports has the following responsibilities:
1. to prepare policies, strategies and programmes that contribute to the promotion of sports and recreation;
2. to disseminate policies and strategies and monitor their implementation to attain the intended objectives;
3. to develop and implement strategies that promote cooperation between sports organisations at national, regional and international level;
4. to regulate the sector of sports through–
5. to develop institutional and human resources capacity through
6. to coordinate, monitor and evaluate policies, strategies and programmes related to sports through setting up and monitoring the implementation of an evaluation system that helps to measure the progress and impact of sports in the development;
7. to oversee the institutions under its supervision through
8. to mobilise resources for the development of the sport sector and related programmes and supervision of activities in which they are utilized to ensure their rational utilisation;
9. to promote private partnership and investment in activities related to the development of the sport sector; and
10. to build a strong advocacy mechanism that promotes sports development.
The Minister
Aurore Mimosa MUNYANGAJU
Minister of Sports
Aurore Mimosa MUNYANGAJU is the current Minister of Sports of Rwanda.
Minister Mimosa brought her great experience of diverse experience within financial services including both Insurance, Commercial and Investment Banking. Minister Mimosa played a key role in establishing the first Securities Trading Company, as well as the first East Africa Commodity Exchange in Rwanda.
Prior to her appointment, Minister Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju was the Chief Executive Officer of SONARWA Life Insurance. SONARWA Life is a Rwandan Insurance Company licensed by the National Bank of Rwanda to transact the business of Life Insurance & Pension management. She also served as the Chief Executive Officer of African Alliance, an investment banking group operating in Africa. She has a vast experience in the banking industry especially in Treasury management operations; Trade finance and institutional Banking. She has an extensive knowledge of the Rwandan Stock Exchange Operations.
Minister Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju served as a Board Member of New Faces New Voices, Rwanda Chapter, a Pan-African group that focuses on expanding the role and influence of women in the financial sector. She also served as a Board Member of COPEDU, a Microfinance institution operating in Rwanda and licensed by the National Bank of Rwanda. She served as the alternate Board Member of Organization of Eastern and Southern Africa Insurers (OESAI)
Minister Aurore Mimosa MUNYANGAJU holds a Master's degree in Business Administration, Project Management from Maastricht School of Management.
At a young age, Minister Mimosa always took an interest in sports. She started out playing Volleyball and Basketball then finally joined her school basketball team which propelled her into a lifelong passion for the game. She also joined the national league playing in different clubs.
Minister Mimosa still actively plays basketball whenever she gets time.
Zephanie NIYONKURU
Permanent Secretary
Mr. Zephanie Niyonkuru is the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Sports from February 2023. Prior to his appointment, he was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB). Prior to his appointment as Deputy CEO of RDB, Mr. Niyonkuru had worked in the private and public sector and led projects for development partners.
Mr. Niyonkuru was the lead Analyst and Operations Manager at Offshore Technology Focus Group (OTF) for mining (extractive industry), mining services, and dairy products. Later on he was promoted to lead all finance, logistic, IT and HR operations including dedicating part of his time supporting research activities.
He had initially worked for RDB as a Strategy expert and Acting Head of the Planning Division. He provided technical support to the CEO and heads of departments on investments, exports and job creation strategic matters. He subsequently spearheaded the establishment of a legal and regulatory framework for Special Economic Zones in Rwanda. He also provided technical support for the establishment of policy framework for the same schemes (SEZs & EPZs) to the East Africa Community Secretariat and later on led corporate strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation activities.
After his time at RDB, he became a ES Partners Associate where he carried out consultancies related to strategy, entrepreneurship, and export development among other things for public and private sector clients across East and West Africa. He led quantitative modelling (financial and economic models) and spearheaded main consultations with stakeholders.
Mr. Niyonkuru carried out research related to the status of inspection and competition across food and drugs in Rwanda to inform the establishment of the Rwanda FDA as part of a short term consultancy for the World Bank Group.
He designed for the Rwandan Ministry of Finance (MINECOFIN) a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the first generation of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST 1). He subsequently trained more than 300 employees from the public sector on how planning, M&E activities for NST1 will be carried out. He later on formulated the overall M&E matrix to track performance of different NST 1 indicators across economic, social and governance clusters.
Mr. Niyonkuru was then named Country Representative to Rwanda for the USAID East Africa Trade & Investment Hub where he oversaw all the activities of the project in Rwanda. The project facilitated companies from agro processing, footwear, home decor and fashion accessories to penetrate and/or increase their sales in the export markets with a special focus on the East Africa and the United States of America. Additionally, he supported companies in raising financing allowing them to expand their activities and meet orders from buyers in the export market.
Mr. Niyonkuru holds a Master’s degree in Finance (Economic Policy) from the University of London, School of Oriental of African Studies (SOAS). He obtained a diploma in private sector development from the Swedish Institute of Public administration and completed training in management of economic development zones in developing countries at the Jiangxi College of Foreign Studies in China. He also holds a CFA level 1 certificate and is a member of the CFA Institute.