Over the next five years in Rwanda, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 713,000 vulnerable Rwandan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 174,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.

To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Rwanda is making core investments in three key areas: 

1. Systems Transformation

Sustainable Market Linkages

• Privatization of Rwanda’s Fertilizer Import and Distribution System
• Beans/Maize Value Chain Development
• Dairy Value Chain Development
• Pyrethrum Value Chain Development
• Development Credit Authority
• Access to Finance Rwanda
• Integrated Improved Livelihoods Program

Infrastructure

• Rwanda Rural Feeder Roads Improvement Program
• Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation Project
• Rwanda Integrated Water Security Program
• Information and Communications Technology for Agriculture

Nutrition

• Support to Sustainable Market Linkages
• Other Support to National Multi-sectoral Strategy to Eliminate Malnutrition (NSEM)

2. Innovation. Research Capacity Building Program

3. Policy

• Sector Program Assistance
• Famine Early Warning System
• Agriculture Sector Capacity Building Program

Target Regions

As a small, landlocked country, Rwanda’s economic development and the stability that underpins it are greatly dependent on its neighborhood. The Government of Rwanda has been a strong advocate of deeper integration within the East African Community, playing a leadership role in advancing regional projects. Given the Government of Rwanda’s commitment to regional integration as a core element of its national development strategy, an important component of the Feed the Future strategy in Rwanda is advocacy for greater attention to those regional issues that have the greatest impact on food security locally, including transit efficiency, food safety and quality standards, market information, and research. 

Highlights

Priority Value Chains. Investments will be focused on a selected number of value chains for maximum impact. An analysis in late 2010 led to the selection of beans, including soy; maize; and dairy as priority value chains, and that with limited investment in the traditional high-value export pyrethrum, gains made to date will be sustained. 

Because much of Rwanda is characterized as a mixed rain-fed temperate/tropical highland agricultural system, climate change models suggest production of beans and maize is likely to rise significantly by 2050, in contrast to some of its regional neighbors, including Tanzania and Uganda. Further, beans and maize are highly complementary: They are often rotated and require similar drying and storage infrastructure, providing potential economies of scale for investments.

In recognition of the potential food security benefits of soy, the Government of Rwanda has expressed interest in expanding its production. Soy’s strong nitrogen-fixing properties can aid in the regeneration of Rwanda’s depleted soils, making it a better rotation crop with maize than traditional bush beans or recently introduced climbing beans.

The competitiveness of Rwanda’s dairy industry within the region is increasingly recognized. Further, milk production has more than doubled since 2006, to nearly 335,000 tons in 2009, while the conditions for expanded processed milk production—namely the adoption of quality standards consistent with those of the broader region and introduction of differential pricing based on quality—accomplished with U.S. Government support, should help the industry respond to latent demand within Rwanda and the region. Specific opportunities include the Government of Rwanda’s recent introduction of a school milk program.  

Infrastructure. Inadequate rural feeder road infrastructure has cost Rwanda millions of dollars. Feed the Future assistance will therefore rehabilitate feeder roads in selected districts utilizing local firms and labor to the greatest extent possible. The program will support decentralization efforts currently underway by channeling resources through district government systems using Fixed Amount Reimbursement Agreements (FARAs). Other planned infrastructure investments include small-scale irrigation networks through the World Bank-managed Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting, and Hillside Irrigation (LWH) project. The project is central to Rwanda’s climate change adaptation plans in the agriculture sector and will apply a modified watershed approach to introduce sustainable land husbandry measures for hillside agriculture, such as terracing, on selected sites, each of which will include some irrigation infrastructure. 

National Multi-sectoral Strategy to Eliminate Malnutrition in Rwanda (NSEM). This three-year strategy focuses principally on the 1,000 days window of opportunity during pregnancy and the first two years of childhood and aims to reduce all forms of malnutrition in Rwanda by 2013. Feed the Future is expected to evolve in support of five key elements of NSEM:

• Strengthen and scale-up community based nutrition interventions/programs (CBNP) to prevent and manage malnutrition in children under the age of five years and in pregnant and lactating mothers.
• Elimination of micronutrient deficiencies
• Multi-sectoral district plans to eliminate malnutrition
• Behavior change communication
• Monitoring and evaluation for nutrition activities at all levels