Based on the challenges in food security, nutrition, agriculture, and climate change in Rwanda, as well as the comparative advantages of FAO Rwanda, FAO’s interventions from 2019-2024 support the Government of Rwanda in achieving its goals to improve food security and advance agricultural development. Outcomes, outputs, indicators, means of verification and assumptions are detailed for each priority area in the CPF Report Document.

One of the Government’s priorities is to accelerate agriculture transformation by means of promoting research and innovation, that is, introducing new crop varieties, disease mitigation, as well as enhancing farmers’ knowledge and skills to support specialization, intensification, diversification, and value addition. In a bid to contribute effectively to that priority, FAO will focus action on achieving the following results: 

• Farmers are engaged in innovative agricultural practices and improved business management.
• Extensions services harmonized and knowledge and technology transfer among farmers are enabled.
• Skills developed for agriculture value chain including farmers’ organization, women and youth, and catering for the needs and capacity of small-scale farmers.

In line with the UNDAP II, supporting the implementation of existing national policies and strategic frameworks will be a key aspect under this priority.

As Rwanda modernizes into a knowledge-based economy, agriculture remains the backbone for sustained economic growth, with the potential of providing high quality livelihoods for the population - the sector contributes about a third to the Gross domestic product (GDP), and employs about 70 percent of the population. That said, the attainment of the country’s vision will require substantial efforts geared at improving the productivity and building a resilient economy. This entails the need of increased yields and diversification into high-value commodities; access to increased resilience to climate change and sustainable land and water and husbandry management; and production, access and utilization of nutritious food. Against this backdrop, FAO will pursue the achievement of the following results: 

• Climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable agro-ecological crop production systems promoted.
• Animal production and fisheries improved, access and utilization of nutritious food, especially for those most food insecure and the malnourished are enhanced.

The structural transformation of the Rwandan economy will essentially require enhancing value addition, promoting diversification, boosting the export base and fostering market linkages. Against this end, FAO will focus on the achievement of the following results: 

• Initiatives to demonstrate and promote production and appropriate post-harvest handling technologies and processing techniques are conducted.
• Initiatives and activities compliant with sustainable market linkages are conducted in the country, especially to promote long-term contract farming models.
• Initiatives to support the development of online trading systems/platforms are conducted to support and enhance regional and domestic trade and market.
• National organizations (producers, private actors, governmental) are capacitated to establish regulations and certification schemes and investment plans to support improvement of quality and standards of agricultural products, integrating the needs (especially access to markets) of poor and smallholder farmers.

Under this priority area, FAO will mainly seek to attain the following results:

• Evidence-based policies/strategies and regulatory frameworks across agriculture sub-sectors are developed or reviewed.
• Capacities of members of parliament on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) including the right to adequate food are strengthened. And, through FAO support, the Parliament gets engaged in discussions around inclusive approaches to rural development, notably through social protection coherence with agricultural measures, as well as focus on gender-sensitive social protection.
• Strengthened institutional capacities on evidence-based management and learning/harnessing effective service delivery within the sector and across other sectors and different levels.
• Strengthened capacities targeting private sector engagement in agriculture sector.

The main themes cutting across these outputs are essentially the mainstreaming of gender issues and due consideration and inclusion of the youth.