Uganda Red Cross, UMI sign collaborative partnership to strengthen service delivery.

Uganda Red Cross and Uganda Management Institute (UMI) has inked a partnership memorandum of understanding aimed at strengthening collaborative efforts in various areas including capacity building, knowledge sharing among others

During the signing ceremony held UMI last Friday, Director General UMI Dr. James Nkata said that the relationship that has been going on and was just been formalized which he said will harness URCS’s practical experiences in areas that UMI would like to research into to enable the Uganda government to begin to undertake evidence-based policy making and formulation in areas like health emergencies and disaster response.

URCS staff will also be enabled to have some of their research findings published in the highly coveted and prestigious academic journals which UMI policy researchers and scholars publish from time to time. There is simply much more contained in the MoU whose implementation will have mutually beneficial outcomes that can prompt other similarly-placed public institutions to consider doing the same.

The Secretary General URCS Robert Kwesiga applauded the partnership which he said will go a long way in changing many areas under the MOU.

“We must have people who can have skills to do research and think, but also be able to publish what we do. The MOU addresses the concern of fact-based storytelling of URCS’s work” he said.

The URCS Spokesperson Irene Nakasita pictured below (3rd L-R) said “We at Uganda Red Cross have today sealed an MOU with the Uganda Management Institute as part of our quest for Partnerships Strengthening and better service delivery. No entity wins alone.  Together we can do more and better, leveraging our strengths” she said

Under the MoU, the two organizations will work together on a number of mutually beneficial areas including undertaking research proposal-writing and capacity building programs for their respective staff, clients and other stakeholders in all study and research activities relating to health emergencies and disaster response services targeting communities where the most vulnerable persons live or work.

Whereas UMI, established under an Act of Parliament in 1969, is charged with spearheading public administration and management training in this country, URCS (established in 1964, five years earlier) is mandated with the coordination of humanitarian responses in Uganda. It executes its mandate through the 51 branches it has across the country where UMI equally serves citizens through its study centers or campuses situated in key major upcountry towns like Mbarara, Mbale and others. They are both public institutions established through an Act of Parliament.

In the MOU UMI will also put in place short courses and other training programs aimed at making URCS staffers more efficient and responsive to contemporary challenges in their respective areas of operation or work. In return, the URCS is obliged to open up as much as possible to enable UMI students/participants or trainees and staff to leverage on its 51 branches network and wide reach across the country while conducting internship and hand-on training.