Results
“My children have never gone hungry, failed to attend school, or not had appropriate clothing. With the little money we earn, I have managed to give my family a decent living.”
- Family planning campaign participant
Inclusive economic transformation focusing on pro-poor economic growth, social inclusion and pro-poor environmental sustainability
To make economic development more inclusive and reduce (or eliminate) poverty, the One UN in Rwanda contributed to strengthened national leadership and increased capacities within structural economic transformation, policy coordination and resource mobilization. Agricultural innovation and value chains were also supported by way of national regulatory frameworks for quality standards compliance. With time, farmers—women and youth in particular—saw increased access to finance, which offered opportunities to engage in income-generating activities and meet other socio-economic needs like child education and healthcare. Along this path the Fund stakeholders collaborated with local authorities and community members to increase agricultural production which contributed to increased food-security in Rubavu, Nyabihu, Musanze, Burera, Kirehe, Gatsibo, Bugesera, Ruhango.
One UN supported the country’s capacity to mainstream green growth policies into said policies, with the intent of helping to advance national plans and provide catalysts for upscaling green villages and improve living conditions for both urban and rural inhabitants.
Institutional, technical and financial support to the Rwandan Chapter of New Faces New Voices
Promoting women's financial inclusion and entrepreneurship was achieved through countless innovative ways. One was the creation of a financial literacy comic booklet for girls and young women, which presented financial concepts in a gender-responsive and illustrative manner. Financial information in this format was more easily-accessible for school-aged girls and was distributed to more than 800 students to positive acclaim.
In parallel, 500 young out-of-school girls, from Nyamata and Nyaruguru, enhanced their knowledge and entrepreneurship skills through focus group discussions on entrepreneurship organized in collaboration with Plan International. Many of these girls then went on to launch saving groups and started to meet on a weekly basis to group their savings and coordinate individual loans to strengthen existing small businesses or initiate new ones.
“We used to leave our children in the forest, since we could not bring them to the plantation,” Sophie Banyangariki said, a mother of two young children. “Now they are safe and well cared for.
Accountable governance
The UN supported Rwandan Government efforts to advance, reinforce and broaden good governance processes and peace building, with the aim of delivering effective, accountable and transparent standards and services that promoted peace, justice, and equity at all levels. Two examples of national achievements were the significant increase in citizen confidence in the operations of the NEC and the increase in district budgets allocated to gender priorities.
Fund stakeholders played a role in strengthening local capacities to implement peace and reconciliation projects that sought to rebuild trust between genocide survivors, perpetrators and their families. In one case, 250 facilitators acquired skills in facilitating community dialogues while more than 10,000 prisoners benefited from dialogues on healing.
Leveraging data for equitable progress
The Fund had a central role in strengthening the capacity of national and local institutions to collate and analyze data, as well as improve evidence-based policy formulation and planning across all result areas. The institutions supported included the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, Ministry of Health, and district and sector offices. Data generated was essential for evidence-based policies and decision making, and for strengthening national efforts towards SDG prioritization, mainstreaming and localization.
Human development priorities, front and centre
One UN programmes and projects reinforced health delivery systems, promoted education, strengthened responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and enhanced efforts to bring about an end to gender-based violence. Support helped foster holistic child, youth and family development services, and also strengthened the quality of pre-primary education by way of developing early childhood education standards. The latter, which rolled out through government investments and action in public pre-primary schools, led to an increase in enrolment rates.
Reductions in maternal and infant mortality rates were achieved by strengthening the health system, building the capacity of health providers and availing new expertise, equipment, and commodities for health facilities. The One UN approach was instrumental in bringing about policy changes to institutionalize maternal death reviews, as a result all maternal deaths at community level are declared by local authorities within 24 hours.
“I stored 750 kg of maize in the silo after the harvest in June last year,” Ruth Mukamana explains, “and was able keep the maize in good condition for us to eat right up to the next harvest season. We lost nothing.”
The One UN was a headline sponsor of the first Africa Green Growth Forum in 2018 that brought together 1,000 investors and policymakers from across the continent. Together, participants explored the measures required to build a green and climate-resilient Africa. The Green Growth Forum was a significant in positioning Rwanda as a leader in green growth and gaining additional ground within the space of environment and climate change work.
As a part of developing digital innovation, digital services were created by the UN to provide smallholder farmers with opportunity to connect to climate resilient agricultural information, finance and markets, and nutrition and food data. Sessions on how to use the services were organized with 168 farmer field school facilitators and 56 agronomists from five districts trained to pass on information to over 5,000 farmers. Moreover, the One UN supported the establishment of a digital platform where women farmers could connect to repositories of information on climate resilient agricultural extension, finance, and markets. This platform was scaled up in 2018 to include more functionalities. So far, 3,200 farmers have registered profiles on the platform.
“I now look forward to growing my business, making more money, and building a house for my family. The Safe Mini Market changed my life for the better.”
Re-upping humanitarian response and disaster management
One UN continued to provide assistance to humanitarian response and disaster management programmes, supporting the development of national capacities for emergency preparedness, resilience building, contingency planning and response through research and assessment, comprehensive risk analysis and policy and strategy formulation.
In collaboration with the central government, conditions for refugees were improved with all refugees in Rwanda provided with assistance (most with cash-grants that also benefitted host communities), this includes the 50,000 Burundians in Mahama refugee camp. In addition, the UN contributed to the emergency response in, and recovery of, landslide affected areas in Northern Rwanda.
> $55M 
$55M - $25M
$25M - $5M
< $5M
