One of the most distinctive elements of Burundi’s transition is the extent to which national leaders have embraced the importance of leadership training as a key to reconciliation and good governance. Indeed, Burundi may be the first case of a country just emerging from conflict in which key leaders have integrated into their peace process a national training program explicitly designed to rebuild their capacity to work effectively together in advancing their country’s postwar reconstruction. This essay examines the goals and methods of the Burundi Leadership Training Program (BLTP).
About the Authors
Howard Wolpe
Howard Wolpe, a former U.S. congressman who chaired the House’s Africa Subcommittee and later served as presidential special envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region, directs the African Program and Leadership Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
In an effort to avoid repeating the 2007 electoral debacle, Kenya’s election commission turned to technology, but its high-tech voter-registration and vote-count processes fell short. Its experience has important lessons…
Emerging from one of the world’s most notorious failed states, Somaliland has become an oasis of relative democratic stability in the troubled Horn of Africa. What does its story teach…
