KnoWat project presented as a success story during a high-level meeting in Rwanda
On 28 April 2022, FAO Country Representative to Rwanda Mr Gualbert Gbehounou met with the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies in Rwanda, the Honorable Donatille Mukabalisa. The Speaker also bid farewell to Mr Gbehounou after a successful four-year stay in the country, as he is leaving Rwanda.
During his time in the country, he worked with the team to implement the Country Programme, aiming at unleashing the potential of farmers and promoting the agriculture sector to end hunger in Rwanda.
Agriculture plays a significant role in Rwanda; the sector accounts for about a third of Rwanda’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and it employs more than 70 percent of the country’s workforce.
During the high-level talk, Mr Gbehounou presented the KnoWat crop-livestock-aquaculture integration in Yanze, Rulindo as a success case.
He said that to keep up the pace of promoting the food system, farmers need to embrace the integrated farming of fish, crops and livestock wherever possible, and explained: “It means that farmers that are growing let’s say vegetables, if possible, they would add to that livestock production, and wherever water is available, that will be completed with aquaculture; fish farming in the Rwandan context. We had a very successful pilot in Rulindo district, with farmers who are in Yanze river basin.”
The KnoWat project has been underway since 2019 in three different areas in Rwanda, including Yanze. The Yanze river serves a variety of people; it is used by farmers, pastoralists and fishers alike, and it is also one of the main water sources for Kigali.
Even though Rwanda is a water-rich country, there is an increasing competition among water users and even water scarcity, due to climate change and population growth, intensification of agriculture and industrialization, among others.
To address these challenges, the project was set out to strengthen water governance and management processes via data collection, capacity development and water tenure assessment, to name a few. On top of these, in Yanze the project supported the diversification of farmers’ sources of income.
As a result, today farmers in the Yanze catchment have increased capacities in water management and better access to water through solar pumps, and more diversified sources of income such as aquaculture. Also the capital benefits from the management of its main water source.
Speaker Donathille Mukabalisa confirmed that FAO continues to be a pivotal partner in the country’s quest to end hunger and promote food security for all and said that: “We appreciated first of all the good collaboration, good cooperation, and good partnership of FAO Rwanda and the government of Rwanda. We commended his leadership in successfully implementing different projects and programmes that contributed a lot to promoting the agriculture sector in our country.”
Find out more at: https://www.fao.org/rwanda/news/detail-events/en/c/1506812/