I recently got to go on a week-long work trip to Rwanda as part of the work I am doing with USAID (The US Agency for International Development). My team was made up of myself, my boss from CIAT, an independent consultant and a representative from the Bureau for Food Security in USAID Washington. Our objective was to talking to as many stakeholders involved in USAID's Feed the Future initiative as possible to assess whether any of what they were doing in Rwanda could be deemed climate smart, and to identify future potential for bolstering CSA.
Firstly, my impressions of Kigali, Rwanda's capital, were that it was a very safe, clean and relaxed capital city with an average temperature in the day of around 24 degrees. On our way to various meetings, we would see groups of 10-20 public workers walking in a line with their brooms or pots of paint over their shoulders going to paint or clean the roads and we always saw women weeding immaculately landscaped public areas. Although it is a very poor country, it does not have the problems of violence and lack of safety that Colombia has. In its post-genocide era, the society and government clearly made a conscious effort to create a more harmonious society. Below are some photos of the roads and landscapes in Kigali.
Firstly, my impressions of Kigali, Rwanda's capital, were that it was a very safe, clean and relaxed capital city with an average temperature in the day of around 24 degrees. On our way to various meetings, we would see groups of 10-20 public workers walking in a line with their brooms or pots of paint over their shoulders going to paint or clean the roads and we always saw women weeding immaculately landscaped public areas. Although it is a very poor country, it does not have the problems of violence and lack of safety that Colombia has. In its post-genocide era, the society and government clearly made a conscious effort to create a more harmonious society. Below are some photos of the roads and landscapes in Kigali.
During the week, we had meetings with USAID themselves in the US Embassy, Feed the Future's implementing partners such as the World Bank and Harvest +, the Rwandan Agricultural Bureau and the FAO. The meetings were very insightful and although some projects were what we termed 'climate blind', others showed promising advances to address climate change and increase the resilience of the Rwandan farmers. All of this is in spite of the fact that they are not incentivised to do so under the current Feed the Future programming. On the whole, I found it very encouraging to see so many powerful entities so engaged with CSA and the government in particular seemed very organised and determined to make Rwanda a leader in green growth and CSA. This is due to the fact that Rwanda is a small land-locked country with the highest population density in Africa of which 80% work in the agricultural sector. Therefore, they will be significantly affected by the impacts of climate change and have very little marketable alternative to fall back on when crops fail. Moreover, Rwanda imports all of its fossil fuels at a very high price, so it is in its interest to ensure self-sufficiency in the years to come.
On one of our breaks in between meetings, we went to an Agricultural Fair and wandered around vast fields displaying the various seeds and foods available in the region, as well as new technologies available to farmers. It was really interesting and I particularly liked seeing the silk wormed attached to the silk machine! Below are some photos:
On one of our breaks in between meetings, we went to an Agricultural Fair and wandered around vast fields displaying the various seeds and foods available in the region, as well as new technologies available to farmers. It was really interesting and I particularly liked seeing the silk wormed attached to the silk machine! Below are some photos:
My next trip will be in Bangladesh, after which I will post a shorter update on what we found there!
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