Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Wunguke Activity
Rwanda
Overview
The two-year Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Wunguke Activity (2023-2025) aimed to increase incomes and improve nutrition in Rwanda by increasing agricultural productivity and strengthening the domestic consumption and market for high-value and nutritious agricultural products. Hinga Wunguke, which translates to “grow profitable” in Kinyarwanda, utilized a market systems approach, engaging and working through existing public and private market actors and structures to facilitate locally driven impact.
Impact
- 39,554 individuals participated in the Activity
- 21,444 farmers implemented risk-reducing actions to improve resilience
- $2,695,891 facilitated in agriculture-related financing
- $5,376,197 increase generated in annual sales of producers and firms receiving USG assistance
- $347,290 in new private sector investment leveraged by the USG to support food security and nutrition
Rwanda experienced significant improvements in agricultural production over the previous 10 years. However, challenges due to the limited use of improved seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs, lack of market information, and constraints such as land size and soil health persisted. The sector also faced challenges such as food insecurity and malnutrition among vulnerable households, with 20.6 percent of the Rwandan population experiencing food insecurity, 18.8 percent experiencing moderate food insecurity, and 1.8 percent experiencing severe food insecurity. About 32.4 percent of children under five years were chronically malnourished (2021 Rwanda CFSVA), and recurring extreme weather events posed serious challenges to the continued growth of the sector. Modernizing the agriculture sector offered the potential to boost productivity and create additional economic opportunities while improving food security and nutrition outcomes for rural households.
The $28 million Hinga Wunguke Activity significantly improved Rwanda’s agricultural productivity, increased profitability for farmers, and enhanced nutrition and food security outcomes by enhancing access to improved inputs, knowledge, technologies, practices, finance, and markets. It also supported policies that enabled and incentivized private-sector investment and growth.
Approach
- Increase Agricultural Productivity: Hinga Wunguke focused on improving agricultural practices by facilitating farmers’ access to knowledge, information, and improved inputs and technologies. This approach aimed to increase productivity and strengthen resilience to shocks.
- Facilitate Access to Finance for Farmers and Agribusinesses: Hinga Wunguke facilitated access to finance and improved the financial literacy skills of farmers and agribusinesses, helping them obtain and manage funding needed to boost their production and incomes. Hinga Wunguke also prioritized engagement with the private sector to increase value chain financing and farm and agribusiness investment opportunities.
- Improve Market Availability and Demand for Nutritious Foods: Hinga Wunguke expanded farmers’ access to markets while increasing the availability and consumption of safe and nutritious food for Rwandan consumers. The Activity accomplished this by using a market systems approach to support the private sector in developing and promoting nutritious products. It then helped generate demand by educating consumers on the benefits of nutritious products.
- Strengthen the Enabling Environment for Market-Driven Agriculture: Hinga Wunguke worked closely with other local implementing partners to strengthen the enabling environment for the development and implementation of policies that strengthen the Government of Rwanda’s (GOR) role as an enabler and the private sector’s role as a main driver of agricultural growth. The Activity facilitated improved public-private dialogue, supporting the GOR to better assist the private sector with investing in and leading systemic changes that could modernize the agriculture sector and drive economic growth.
Partners
To implement Hinga Wunguke, Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) collaborated with both international and local partner organizations, including MarketShare Associates (MSA), a global firm of creative facilitators, strategists, economists, and experienced research and implementation experts who believe that both public and private institutions should contribute to social transformation. Having already a great deal of experience in Rwanda, MSA’s mission is to bring actionable insights to market development.
The Activity also worked with Rwandan market systems actors, which were a key part of the Hinga Wunguke market-oriented approach supporting its Catalytic Service Provider Fund and its Market Systems Opportunity Grants, which together totaled over $5.3 million. These resources allowed Hinga Wunguke to engage, innovate, disengage, adapt, and scale with a large number of Rwandan market systems actors whenever needed. Hinga Wunguke also used a co-creation approach to identify entrepreneurs and change makers and bring in new expertise where appropriate to achieve desired results. Hinga Wunguke continually sought participant feedback on the use of these resources, including through annual surveys, impact assessments, and quarterly focus group discussions with participants throughout the relevant implementation areas of Rwanda.
