On June 30th and July 1st, Addis Ababa 39 members of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s House of People’s Representatives participated in a “Good Governance” workshop conducted by international good governance experts from the Pointman Leadership Institute. The training which was organized by Justice For All-Prison Fellowship Ethiopia (JFA-PFE) with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was designed to broaden understanding of good governance, parliamentary oversight and leadership skills to enable them fulfill their core function.
During the intensive two-day training workshop, Members of Parliament (MPs) trained on leadership role and good governance which was supported by group discussion to help them build their capacity to better serve their constituents.
On his welcome speech, JFA-PFE’s President Pastor Daniel Gebreselassie indicated the importance of the role of parliamentarians in effectively leading transparency and accountability for the existence of Democratic Governance and parliamentary oversight. It is with this in mind that JFA-PFE organizes a workshop such as this to develop the capacity of the legislative body. He also mentioned that similar programs will be carried out for regional and federal parliamentarians, in the future.
Opening the event, U.S. Ambassador Michael Raynor began by expressing his condolences for those whose families were killed and injured by the attack at Meskel square. During his remarks he reminded MPs of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote that true government is “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The Ambassador expressed U.S. support to Government of Ethiopia’s move to “commit itself to reform, to widening political space, to pursuing new avenue to economic prosperity, and to including all of its citizens in the process of charting this extraordinary country’s future.”
The good governance workshop was made possible through the strong partnership between USAID and Justice For All-Prison Fellowship Ethiopia. Since 2007, USAID has supported JFA-PFE on a range of activities to promote human rights, improve the justice system, and advance good governance. These programs have provided human rights trainings for several hundreds of judges, public prosecutors, and police officers from around the country and helped raise awareness of the negative effects of child marriage and Female Genital Mutilation.
JFA-PFE for the past 26 years, has been working on promoting human rights, good governance and rule of law for prevalence of justice in Ethiopia which enhances and sustains development of the country through advocacy and capacity development of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of the government.
