Rwanda is working towards becoming upper-middle income by the year 2035 and a high-income country by 2050. While Rwanda’s economic transformation depends on many other sectors, agriculture  remains a key driver to attain the desired income status the country seeks since seventy percent of Rwandans depend on the same sector. Rwanda has worked hard on modernizing the agriculture sector and implementing different strategies and policies, resulting in the sector's growth over the years.

To  achieve its goals, Rwanda has enacted strategic plans for agricultural transformation (PSTAs). The current edition of the PSTA will end in June 2024 and the inception work for the subsequent 6-year strategy, PSTA5, is already underway. Following an appraisal of lessons from PSTA 4, Dr. Olivier Kamana, Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) convened a working session of experts to provide inputs for the draft Terms of Reference of PSTA 5’s development process.

The workshop included presentations by Mehnaz Paracha, Food Systems Advisor, FAO country office in Rwanda, on approaches for developing agrifood policies, followed by a presentation by Siobhan Kelly, Agribusiness Economist, Food Systems and Food Safety Division (ESF), FAO HQ, on adopting a food systems approach for policymaking. The next step in PSTA 5’s inception process saw Dr. Ildephonse Musafiri, the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, convene the Sector Wide Approach on May 11^th, 2023, to share with national and international partners supporting the sector, MINAGRI’s vision and plan for the development of the PSTA 5 for comments and feedback. During the next 12 months, the Government of Rwanda, led by MINAGRI and supported by FAO and development partners, will carry out a range of multi-stakeholder consultations at the district, urban, sector, and cell levels to inform the Strategy’s design, ensuring that it responds to the needs of the entire agrifood system from 2024 and beyond.

Speaking on the collaboration between FAO and MINAGRI, Ms. Coumba Sow, FAO representative in Rwanda underscored that “We pledge our support to the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to accompany Rwanda as it works towards the development of its Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA 5). We are supporting the policy process which will contribute to closing gaps in evidence and innovation to inform PSTA 5 while also managing tradeoffs using an agrifood system approach”.

The objective of PSTA 5 will be to position the agrifood sector as the key driver for achieving food sovereignty by building resilient, inclusive, and sustainable food systems in order to address key challenges including climate change, natural resource degradation, malnutrition and stunting, low yields, food losses and waste, and weak service provision for access to finance, markets and value addition, as well as a lack of investment in research, innovation, and development. These challenges are made worse by ongoing disruptions such the recent global shocks of COVID-19, the Russian-Ukraine war, and food price inflation.

PSTA 5 will also be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic growth and prosperity for all. PSTA 5 is expected to design and implement programmes that will be implemented over a six-year period, from June 2024 through to 2030, to achieve Rwanda's agricultural-related targets, as mentioned in the national planning documents.

For more information on Rwanda, please check out this episode of the podcast mini-series 'Towards Sustainable Food Systems' in which we are joined by guests Seraphin Niyonsenga, Senior Scientist, AKADEMIYA 2063; and Mignone Karugu, CEO, Africa Business Group.

The conversation provides important insights into Rwanda’s development journey since the late 1990s. Our guests discuss some of the policies and institutional stakeholder dynamics and conditions that shaped and sustained opportunities for the Rwandan food system’s path towards sustainability, as well as some of the challenges and trade-offs encountered.

The publication that inspired this episode, Rwanda’s journey towards sustainable food systems – The processes and practices that made a difference, can be consulted here.

(Photo: ©Jean Bernard MUKUNDENTE)