Country strategy framework and lessons

Directives of the 2001 COSOP

The COSOP for Rwanda approved in July 2001 by IFAD, reflects IFAD and Regional strategies, the evolving circumstances in Rwanda, the lessons of project implementation experience, and the important changes introduced to the country’s institutional setting. The overall aim of IFAD is to comply, as much as possible within the constraints of the Fund limited resources, with the Government’s request that IFAD takes the lead in supporting Government efforts to alleviate rural poverty. This would entail investing resources in projects focusing on sustainable activities that respond to the felt needs of the target group, developing and testing approaches that can be replicated in other parts of the country with the support of other Donors, promoting co-financing of own projects by other Donors, and maintaining an effective policy dialogue with the Government on matters related to the economic, human and institutional development of the poor rural community in Rwanda.

Strategic guidelines. In pursuing its overall aims, IFAD is guided by three basic strategic guidelines:

• emphasis on institutional development to achieve the effective transition of project approaches to local communities from the concept of helping project “beneficiaries” to that of dealing with “partners in development”;
• exploiting all potential means of increasing the income of the rural poor, including food and cash crops, livestock, and non-farm income generating activities; and
• focus on the potential synergies between IFAD projects, undertaking a smaller number of projects covering a smaller area with complementary activities, and correspondingly increase the support of IFAD Headquarters to project start-up and implementation.

Accordingly, the COSOP indicates the following nine main thrusts of IFAD strategy in Rwanda:

• support to the government decentralization policy;
• support to the development of sustainable rural microfinance institutions;
• support to new ways to handle issues in technology generation and transfer for crop and livestock;
• support to income generation, income diversification, and market organization;
• integrated support to small and medium size non-farming rural enterprises;
• support to community infrastructure;
• cross cutting emphasis on gender and on fighting impact of HIV/AIDS;
• decentralized project management and improved reporting monitoring and impact evaluation practices;
• improved exploitation of potential synergies among different IFAD projects, and more exchange of experiences among IFAD projects and with other Donors’ initiatives with similar objectives.