18/02/2020   The EU-funded TAP-AIS project, which develops capacities in agricultural innovation systems in eight countries, was officially launched in Rwanda at an inception workshop in Kigali on 18 February 2020.  

Dr. Theogene Rutagengwa, the Director General in charge of Animal Resource Development in the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) opened the workshop, observing that “we need to innovate because Rwandan agriculture is constrained by a small size of land per capita, where we live and use for food production, so we need to do things differently”

In Rwanda, the project is coordinated by MINAGRI and managed by FAO-Rwanda with support of FAO’s Research and Extension Unit.

The event paved the way for connecting the project with Rwanda’s policies and initiatives in a participatory manner. The specific objective of the workshop was to validate the plan for implementing the project in consultation with relevant national stakeholders. The expected results were:

·         Awareness raised and shared understanding reached among relevant key partners regarding the project’s objectives, expected results and proposed activities and processes.

·         Roles and responsibilities of key actors are clarified, and implementation modalities and specific entry points for the project are identified and validated.

·         Alignment with relevant policies and initiatives on capacity development and agricultural innovation in Rwanda is established to ensure synergies and value-addition.

Participants recommended three potential focus areas of the project: 1) The small livestock sub-sector, 2) Access to finance for agricultural and rural development; and 3) Sustainable soil and environmental management, for climate-resilient solutions in the agriculture sector. These will be further assessed by the project’s country advisory team, a group of experts on innovation and agriculture that advises the project. The workshop also reviewed the project’s planned activities, which include an assessment of agricultural innovation systems around the proposed focus areas, to guide further project actions to develop capacities in agricultural innovation systems in Rwanda.

The workshop, jointly organized by the FAO Rwanda and MINAGRI, included the participation of 24 actors in the agricultural innovation systems of Rwanda, including government ministries, research institutes, universities, advisory service organizations, farmers’ associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private value chain actors, as well as journalists.

For more information about the TAP-AIS project in Rwanda see: http://www.fao.org/in-action/tropical-agriculture-platform/projects/tap-ais/rwanda/en/

 Picture: Participants of the workshop in Kigali. ©FAO/Teopista Mutesi