“Women” and “fishing” are two words that would not have been used together in the same sentence a few years ago in Rwanda. It has been a long-held belief in Rwanda that fishing is not for women – it is a man’s occupation. Women have mostly embraced this thinking as well, but...

In Africa, digital innovation has the power to transform the agriculture and employment sectors by improving food production, providing agribusiness opportunities and creating exciting new employment opportunities for young people. In Rwanda and Senegal, the FAO has partnered with local farmers and innovators to develop and pilot four new mobile...

As part of FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative (BGI) the FAO Member Countries of the Eastern Africa Sub-Region met to agree on a strategy for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture within the Blue Growth Initiative in Eastern Africa (BGI Strategy). The BGI is an FAO flagship initiative that aims at...

Formed in 2007, Food Plant Solutions Rotary Action Group (FPS) creates science-based educational materials, which: identify highly nutritious local food plants, explain how to grow them in a sustainable, agroecological way, detail the nutritional value of the plants and describe why human bodies require those nutrients. The resources created by FPS allows people to better...

For over 40 years, natural hazards (mainly droughts, floods and landslides) have affected millions of people in the eastern Africa sub-region. The impact of these hazards have been high, continue to rise in frequency and are mostly felt in the agriculture and food sectors. In some other countries of the...

Living in and from the forests of Central Africa is intended first and foremost as a full-scale extension tool concerning NWFPs in Central Africa. It is a work on the groups who have always lived in these forests, forests that contribute to every aspect of their daily lives, both material...

The adoption of integrated ecosystems approaches for the management of land resources in the Kagera Basin has generated local, national and global benefits including: restoration of degraded lands, carbon sequestration and climate change adaptation and mitigation, protection of international waters, agro-biodiversity conservation and sustainable use and improved agricultural production, leading...

Across Africa, governments grapple with the challenge of designing appropriate policies that foster development and strike a balance between current and future development goals. In the natural resources sectors the challenge is further exacerbated by sustainable development concerns. Ensuring that the economic value derived delivers inter-generational value is an important...

In the prevailing context of higher climate variability with the rainy season being no longer predictable, supply of water is extremely important for the farmers. Farmers in Rwanda do not have enough rain for their production due to drought. There is competition for water use between rural and urban area....

Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), FAW, is an insect native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. Its larval stage (photo) feeds on more than 80 plant species, including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton. FAW can cause significant yield losses if not well managed. It can...

In rural Rwanda, where roughly one in four people lack access to a safe water source, many communities rely on rivers and streams to drink, wash, clean, farm, and play. Conventional coffee farming methods and processing can poison water used by people downstream. Responsible coffee production, as demonstrated by this...

This is the policy brief drawn from a longer review that analyses and summarizes impact evaluation findings that focus on the interaction between agricultural interventions (including rural extension services, rural development, natural resource management, access to markets, subsidized credit, investment grants, access to improved seeds and fertilizer subsidies), and social...

This research focuses on the public works component of Rwanda’s Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme (VUP) – the Government of Rwanda’s flagship programme for poverty reduction providing countrywide social protection. The research was based on a mixed method approach comprising in-depth qualitative methods and quantitative surveys conducted in Rwanda during the...

Rwanda has targeted the transformation of the agricultural sector with significant public investments in land use consolidation, irrigation, land improvement, soil and water conservation, access to inputs, increasing livestock herds, and capital-building through support to cooperative development. Smallholders farm an average of four to five plots that make up an...

The project aims at improving food security and reducing rural poverty of smallholder farmers through providing guidance and technical support to enhance the quality, impact and sustainability of Agricultural Water Management (AWM) investments. Water is crucial to economies and to livelihoods and is central for poverty reduction. Sufficient availability and...

In its final newsletter of 2016, FAO-Rwanda shares valuable updates and inspiring success stories from our One UN nutrition project to reduce stunting and our Rural Women's Economic Empowerment project. This issue also includes highlights from World Food Day and information on the emergency relief work FAO is supporting to...

This publication was initiated by the FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa to identify, analyse and document existing watershed management practices in the Eastern Africa sub-region that contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. There is opportunity to use this information to inform agriculture and watershed management-related policies, programmes and...

The regional workshop, entitled “Engaging agriculture, forestry and fisheries in support to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” was held in Kigali, Rwanda from 19 to 21 September 2016. This event served as an opportunity for FAO to engage more effectively with countries in Africa, through its delivery mechanisms, on...

Rwanda is the first country in the world where women hold a parliamentary majority and new laws have given women rights to land, employment opportunities and education. Now, in the most remote parts of the country, gender equality is going a long way to reducing poverty.

Aveuglée par une politique de libre-échange poussée à l'extrême, la Commission européenne s'apprête à imposer à plusieurs États africains, dans l'indifférence quasi-totale, des Accords de Partenariat Économique (APE) déséquilibrés par un rapport de force à l'avantage du continent européen. Malgré les mises en garde nombreuses et répétées sur les effets dramatiques...