Rwanda and FAO support business opportunities for young women and men
Poultry and aquaculture value chains promoted
18 November 2014 – Kigali, Rwanda – The Government of Rwanda and FAO jointly launched a project to fight malnutrition and rural poverty, through increasing decent employment in the agricultural sector and improving the local poultry value chain.
In Rwanda major programmes to improve livelihoods of the Rwandan, to mention a few, include crop intensification programme, one cow per family programme, school feeding programme, kitchen garden and fortified crops.
Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), Dr Christine Kanyandekwe, Deputy Director-General for Animal Resources in Rwanda Agriculture Board, appreciated the cooperation with FAO in supporting Rwandan farmers.
“The launch of this new project will speed up our goal of eradicating poverty and job creation for our youth. It goes along with the Government’s component in Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation in Rwanda”, she said.
The project, financially supported by Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF), will work directly in the production and marketing segment of the value chain by supporting business opportunities for young women and men to produce seeds for poultry and aquaculture value chains as well as assist small-scale producers to sustainably increase their production and develop effective market linkages between cooperatives and the associations of producers and traders.
“This three-year initiative will select rural youth and poor/vulnerable households mainly women headed families as direct beneficiaries. Poultry farm will offer them supplemental income in addition to improving family diets”, said Oumar Diall, a lead technical officer for FAO managed-Africa Solidarity Trust Fund project in Eastern Africa.
Rwanda is part of the four recipient countries in Eastern Africa (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda) to benefit from the SFE managed ASTF project. The fund was launched in 2013 as a unique Africa-led initiative to improve agriculture and food security across the region.
Nutrition status in Rwanda at a glance
Despite impressive improvement on national food situation, Rwanda still faces serious challenges of child malnutrition under five years of age. Latest data from Demographics and Health Survey in 2010 show that while the acute malnutrition rate has sharply declined from 5% in 2005 to 3% in 2010, chronic malnutrition, or stunting, remains pervasive at 44 % nationally. Furthermore, anemia affects 38% of children below 5 years old and 17% of women aged 15-49 years. Given this situation, Rwanda has been at the forefront to tackle chronic malnutrition together with all stakeholders.
Scaling up efforts of ONE UN Rwanda in fighting malnutrition
FAO in collaboration with UN sister agencies in Rwanda such as UNICEF, WFP and WHO is working on another project to fight child malnutrition in two most affected districts of Nyamagabe and Rutsiro, funded by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
“FAO’s intervention aims at promoting local production and consumption of nutritious and safe food. Focused activities on the distribution of small livestock, the construction of kitchen gardens and the provision of related inputs are emphasized to ensure resilience building livelihoods for vulnerable households”, said Otto Vianney Muhinda, Assistant FAO Representative in Rwanda. About 649 households in the district of Nyamagabe and 2,120 households in the district of Rutsiro will be the direct beneficiaries of the collaborative effort.
The new ASTF funded project is going to focus on the next mostly affected malnutrition districts in Rwanda, which are Bugesera, Gisagara, Gakenke and Ruhango.
Additional information is available online at:
More information on the ASTF:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/030/mj556e.pdf
Some photos on the launch of the ASTF project in Rwanda
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qx7cnc2g8bbjd2j/AADiIbD4CjzB7rzPrEluPoera?dl=0
Contact:
Ny YOU
Communications , FAO-Regional Office for Africa
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +250 788 3381 962