New project launched to empower smallholder farmers through implementation of Maputo and Malabo declarations in Rwanda

The development project is titled “Empowering smallholder farmers through implementation of Maputo and Malabo declarations in Rwanda- EFIMADEC”; with the overall objective of increasing smallholder farmers’ economic empowerment and dignity through implementation of Maputo and Malabo declarations. This project is inspired by Maputo and Malabo declarations whereby, African Heads of States agreed to invest at least 10% of national budget in agriculture aiming at 6% annual agriculture productivity growth. An assessment made from Maputo to Malabo: Public Agricultural Spending and Food Security in Africa have revealed that food security has improved in countries which spend more on agriculture (HAL archives-ouvertes, 2018). The World Bank support that growth in agriculture is the most effective way to reduce poverty, with growth in the sector reducing poverty by around 3 times as much as growth in other productive sectors (World Bank, 2015).

Observing that the commitments are not being fully implemented, the project intends to advocate for implementation of aforesaid declarations in Rwanda. These proposed actions will gather useful information (data) from Ministries, districts, farmers’ platforms and other stakeholders about the rate of budget allocated in Agriculture at different levels with gender and youth inclusiveness. It will produce a tool (fact-based advocacy) that will be used by Inades-Formation Rwanda for advocacy purposes in the improvement of livelihoods, food and nutrition security in 6 districts involved in the study and countrywide. The districts were selected to represent all provinces and Kigali City based on random sampling.

The project report will present the actual budget allocated in agriculture sector, fluctuation over the recent years, gaps and challenges faced by Rwandan government to fully implement the commitment toward Maputo and Malabo declarations and thereafter different workshops will be organized to share the findings and formulate recommendations based on outcomes and outputs of the interventions to the policy and decision-makers.

We will work on creating an enabling environment that should influence the future decisions toward fully implementing Maputo and Malabo declarations, i.e. creating inclusive and operational dialogue platforms on agricultural issues, strengthening smallholder farmers’ capacity on advocacy methodology to make decision-makers accountable and transparent, increasing supported smallholder farmers’ organizations and implementing partner’s funding capacities, etc .

Briefly the following are the expected project outcomes from the current project implementation:

• Democratic and sustainable practices incorporated in farmers’ organizations,
• Engaged duty bearers on various levels driving long-term structural changes in society.
• Improved livelihood outcomes (food and nutritional security) among farm organisations members