What We Do

Thematic Areas

Economic Sustainability

Regarding economic growth, RWARRI aims to sustainably increase Rwandans’ income, skills, and competencies. As part of achieving the or­ganization’s objectives, the centre of attention will be on assisting farmers to form strong farm­er organizations, improving production quan­titatively and qualitatively, processing farming products, commercialization, linking farmers to all actors in the farming sector, putting hands-on practical skills that increase employability, and most importantly the significant inclusion of youth and women.

Previously, RWARRI focused primarily on rural economic development. However, with this new strategic plan, the organization will extend the development activities in to the urban areas as well.

In this cluster, the major Planned Activities are:

Equip farmers with skills in Good Agricultural Practices and Post-Harvest Handling and Storage through trainings

·       Promote conservational agriculture, integrated soil fertility management, and demonstrate best practices for erosion control

·       Promoting urban agriculture by establishing demo plots on community gardens, rooftop farms, and hydroponic technics

·       Promotion of family agriculture and support family farming model

·       Promote horticulture farming to complement families and school feeding programs and support the establishment of the cold storage facility

·       Facilitate the establishment of the factory for transforming cobs into briquets for cooking

·       Facilitate seed multiplication for the following crops: Maize, Beans, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, Cassava, soybeans, Rice, and Horticultural crops

·       Facilitate value addition of agriculture and livestock production and assist farmers in recycling and transforming the rest of agriculture production

·       Facilitate farmers to access the improved PHHS equipment and infrastructure;

·       Facilitate linkage between value-chain actors, between producers and buyers, and producers to storage facilities

·       Facilitate access to finance through the linkage between farmers with financial institutions and strengthen farmers’ financial literacy and business skills with an emphasis on women and youth

·       Strengthen the capacity of farmers in Livestock management

·       Facilitate the reduction of unpaid work and promote awareness of gender equality and equity

·       Promote jobs creation and professional development of youth

·       Raise awareness on savings and investments and facilitate the formation and functioning of saving groups

·       Provision of short courses on technical trade and facilitate access to toolkits and equipment for jobs creation.

Ecological Viability

RWARRI’s goal has been the promotion of envi­ronmental sustainability and natural resources management. Our Strategic Plan emphasises on defined initiatives, thorough research on the best practices in achieving the goal in partner­ship with the various stakeholder groups includ­ing the beneficiaries targeted by the planned activities below.

The following are major planned activities for the ecological viability include but not limited to the followings:

·                Improvement in use of soil and water management practices by maintaining the existing water management infra­structures, capacity building for wa­ter-user associations, erosion control and landscape management along with promotion of rainwater harvesting and re-use,

·                Increase the adoption of forestry and agroforestry management practices by providing trainings on planting of agro­forestry trees and its proper use, for­estation and awareness on forestry and agroforestry management,

·                Promote climate resilience and adapta­tion, and prevention of environment deg­radation by sensitizing new and existing innovation to cope with climate,

·                Reducing food loss and waste alongside the whole food value chain and final­ly advocate for positive climate policies and technologies,

·                Encourage the development of the circular economy by supporting waste recycling techniques and technology for future re-use, facilitating corporate growth through producing value addition, and recycling the remainder,

·                Accelerate Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts by Anticipating, preparing for, adapting to, and recover­ing from the impacts of climate change while advancing the climate resilience through adaptation planning and imple­mentation activities and Climate smart agriculture,

·                Protect and Restore Waterbodies and Watersheds by protecting these re­sources against threats such as climate change, drought, invasive species, plas­tics, and nutrient pollution,

·                Reduce Waste and Prevent Environ­mental Contamination by mitigating and adapting environmental impacts caused by water,

·                Integration of pest management by adapt­ing the push pull technology (biological pest control) and crop rotation.

Technological Advancement

RWARRI in its strategic plan works with the mod­el of knowledge appropriation, dissemination, use and communication models while improving knowledge of the target groups of people and technologies in terms of innovation. Technology transfer is favoured by RWARRI in its develop­ment efforts, as it helps to develop early-stage intellectual property into tools for direct use by the communities, foundations for new develop­ment platforms, products or services to be trans­formed into products for public use.

Innovative projects will be promoted through partnerships and the development of innovative networks and beneficial partnerships with the Government of Rwanda, central and local gov­ernment institutions and international partners, the United Nations Agencies, multilateral devel­opment partners as well as the private sector.

Major planned activities to enhance the use of technology in development of infrastructure, commercial agriculture and value addition to in­crease competitiveness include but not limited to the following activities:

·                Raise the awareness of community members on new or existing mechani­zation techniques and equipment,

·                Develop a business model which can facilitate the use of mechanization tech­niques,

·                Provide trainings to the agricultural technicians and farmers on the use, management and maintenance of mechanization techniques (ploughing, spraying, harvesting…) and equipment,

·                Support the farmers on the use of mechanization techniques in farming activities,

·                Promote the use of solar-powered irri­gation,

·                Promote the use of green energies in post-harvest activities such as the solar shellers, winnowers, driers, grinders, lightning, cold rooms among others,

·                Create and initiate an innovative and user-friendly agriculture app (weather, inputs, production, markets, policies, best practices…),

·                Support the digital saving groups in us­ing technologies.

 Social Transformation

Derived from the National Strategy for Trans­formation (NTS1), where Rwanda’s goal is to develop its citizens into a capable and skilled people with quality standards of living and a stable and secure society’, our Strategic Plan’s Social Transformation’s planned core activities for the next seven years are a bid to contribute to the realization of the national goal.

The below listed activities are in no way exhaus­tive but are a representation of the initiatives that RWARRI has tactically considered through research to feasibly achieve the national goal:  

·                Promoted income generating activities by mobilizing farmers through awareness campaigns,

·                Develop a digital baseline data tool to monitor human security interventions and progress,

·                Reduced malnutrition among young children, pregnant and breast-feeding mothers and other vulnerable persons by mobilizing community members to establish kitchen gardens and small livestock rearing,

·                Conduct awareness sessions based on the national campaign in fighting malnutrition,

·                Link the community members with suppliers and livestock market,

·                Support the promotion of high-quality nutritive foods among the small holder farmers such as sweet potatoes, Iron rich beans, vegetables and raising small livestock,

·                Create certified short courses aimed at building a knowledge-based economy by conducting a need assessment (feasibility study on focus areas); Planning session; Content and methods development of a knowledge-based curriculum; Pilot-delivery and revise; Implementation of the curriculum (completed package); Evaluation and reporting on progress,

·                Supporting the Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) by mobilizing beneficiaries to get health insurance (Mutuel de Santé),

·                Scaling up the school feeding program in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools to reduce dropout through distribution of On-site meals to children while at school during meal times. These may include serving fortified porridge, high energy/fortified snacks or meal composed of different food items. Take home rations can be in collection form of basic items which a given to the children's families. This could be used as an awareness tool in attendance and retention, school enrolment. Both core activities may be applied mutually instead as separate incentives,

·                Providing adequate teaching and learning material at all levels (Textbook Distribution System) by supplying and distributing teaching and learning materials,

·                Construction and equipping of TVET Centres with teaching and learning materials such as a fully equipped kitchens; IT classrooms; etc,

·                Training teachers on Special Need and Inclusive Education by building capacity in Teacher Training Institutions through a developed curriculum on inclusive education, and conducting an awareness campaign in attitudinal change on special needs and inclusive education,

·       Increasing the use of ICT in teaching and learning through construction of smart classrooms in TVET schools and providing laptops to TVET teachers,

·       Addressing human security issues through construction of houses and latrines for eligible poor households,

·       Promotion of socio-economic inclusion and welfare of refugees and host communities through toolkits/equip­ment distribution and the construction of markets in and around refugee camps,

·       Prevention of gender-based violence, child abuse and teenage pregnancy,

·       Ensuring reintegration of street and orphan children into families.

Institutional Strengthening & Capacity Enhancement

RWARRI focuses on improving the organi­zation’s capability by aligning strategy, struc­ture, people, rewards, metrics, and manage­ment processes. The organization uses a science-backed, interdisciplinary field rooted in psychology, culture, innovation, social sci­ences, human resource management, change, organization behaviour, and research analysis and design. The organization reaches its target by mobilizing funds and satisfying the donors’ and targeted groups’ needs. RWARRI involves an ongoing, systematic, long-range process of driving organizational effectiveness, solving problems, and improving organizational perfor­mance.

Since its creation, RWARRI has prioritized the organization’s development through strengthen­ing to respond to any situation considering na­tional and global contemplations.

RWARRI’s strategic plan, 2023 up to 2030 fo­cuses on the following significant activities for institutional strengthening but are not limited to:

·                Improving internal and external communication,

·                Designing strategies for staff and management,

·                Organizational equipment procured and well maintained,

·                Hold management, board, and annual general meetings as per the constitution,

·                Monitoring and Evaluation tools by developing monitoring indicators for each project,

·                Increasing funding from funding partners through developing a Fundraising Strategy,

·                Documentation (Production, Filing Systems, and Archiving),

·                Establishing a centre of innovation and technology hub in agriculture.