THE BACKGROUND
Agriculture is the main economic activity in Rwanda with 70% of the population engaged in the sector, and around 72% of the working population employed in agriculture. Despite the various interventions and strategies to meet the country’s aspirations, youth unemployment remains a serious challenge in Rwanda. According to the Rwanda Labour force survey annual report 2020, labour force participation rate is 56.4% and youth unemployment rate stands at 22.4%. The government of Rwanda in partnership with various development partners has been have been reognising the role of the youth in economic transformation especially agriculture sector transformation and it is among the reasons why rwanda youth in agribusiness forum (RYAF) was established as platform of youth empowerment and advocacy, to create an enabling environment in which major youth challenges will be solved in.
The following challenges are ranked among major challenges that are still pushing back the youth away of agribusiness;
Challenge 1: Limited awareness of the youth in policy implementation: During discussion with the young people, they indicated that the problem is in policy or strategy implementation where the young people do not reflect on policy because they are not aware of it and sometimes, the policies and strategies do not reflect on the particular interest of young people during its implementation.
Challenges 2: Youth access to knowledge & skills, and information. Insufficient access to knowledge and information can hinder the development of entrepreneurial ventures. Young people lack experience and knowledge of how productive agriculture is done, how to establish and manage a business, how to market produces…
Challenges 3: Limited Access to financial services. There are several constraints serving as bottlenecks to youth individuals or youth SMEs in accessing finance from financial institutions. Most financial service providers are reluctant to provide their services to youth– including credit, savings and insurance – particularly to rural youth due to their lack of collateral and financial literacy, among other reasons. Promoting financial products catered to youth, mentorship programme and start-up funding opportunities can all help remedy this issue.
Challenge 4: Youth access to land: Although access to land is fundamental to starting a farm, it can often be difficult for Rwandan young people to attain. Inheritance laws and customs often make the transfer of land to young women prohibitive. In implementing the strategic framework, under the priority of promoting coherent, evidence- based policies on youth in agribusiness. The limited access to finance not only limit the young people to access finance (Collateral) and expanding agriculture production only but also to the young people to access on agriculture inputs on subsidy.
Challenges 5: Access to markets. Access to markets for Rwandan youth is becoming even more difficult due to overgrowing challenges for youth mostly attributed to limited skills & investment ≠ limited output to comply with market volume and standard ≠ competition with big business
THE ONGOING INITIATIVE ON STRATEGIC ADVOCACY
1. Rural Youth Alliance Rwanda
Rwanda Youth In Agribusiness Forum (RYAF) has been partnering with International fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) through PROCASUR in process of initiating and impleemnting the rural youth alliance approach. It is an approach of promoting the grassroot youth in sustainable rural youth transformation. the model bring together diverse rural youth voices, amplify them and connect them with an effective actions for development.
As part of the process, RYAF collaborated with Procasur[1] to develop a preliminary Action Plan that defines key functions of the youth convener organization and set the roadmap of actions to deliver the vision of the Grassroots Approach, taking full ownership for making progress in achieving related results. By November 2021, Procasur signed the Letter of Agreement with RYAF to ensure the formalization of partnership and start the implementation of activities.
[1] Procasur is a global organization (Established in Chile, South America) specialized in knowledge management for rural innovation that for more than 20 years and has been working to improve the performance of development policies, programmes and projects that improve the economic, social and environmental lives of rural people. The Procasur signed partnership agreement with IFAD to lead and assist in development and ensure operationalization of this model of Rural Youth Alliance in Rwanda.
After signing the agreement, various preliminary activities were done including Identification of the potential youth organization through preparing and launching the call via various sociomedia networks for the youth organizations eligible to apply for being part of the rural youth alliance. After 10 days, the application ended up being 92 youth applicants from which only 28 potential ones were selected based on the criteria previously established. By mid-December 2021, the initial virtual meeting with preselected youth organizations was conducted and participated by 10 organizations. Even though the participation was low compared to invitee, the participants were explained on the intent of the rural youth alliance and openly complemented with how the alliance should work to ensure its effective achievement. As next step from the virtual meeting, the participants agreed to organize the meeting by 14th January 2022 at Kigali-Rwanda with preliminary youth organizations. By the meeting conducted on 14th January 2022, at Hilltop Hotel, Kigali Rwanda. The overall 21 people participated the meeting including Permanent of Secretary (P.S) of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI), Executive Secretary of the National Youth Council (NYC), 14 youth organisations and 5 RYAF staff and Team from IFAD youth desk Rome (Miss Federica Emma) and from Procasur (Mrs. Viviana Sacco) and both attended virtually.
During the process, it was found that they members of the rural youth alliance should be empowered to conduct comprehensive and well informed advocacy and policy dialogue. It is on this regards, the training on advocacy and policy were organised during 2 days on 1st July and 8th July 2022 for 15 youth organisations’ members of the rural youth alliance Rwanda represented by 30 people ( 2 people per organization).
During the training, various potential strategic partners including Kilimotrust, Natonal Youth Council were represented during the sessions. The physical training organization were done by RYAF while Procasur provided the trainers (Virtually) and also facilitator who attended physically from Kigali to facilitate the training. The both sessions were held at Classic Hotel Kigali, Rwanda. The training covered 4 important modules including (i) conceptual approaches (ii) Spaces and Actors (iii) Networking, Leadership, action and negotiation processes, (iv) Developing an advocacy plan. The first two modules were covered in the first day session of 1st July 2022 and the last two modules were also covered in the second day session of 8th July 2022.
2. Youth meaningful Engagement In Strategy Formulation
FAO has been partnering with Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda (MINAGRI) in process of developing of a National Youth Employment Strategy in Agri-food Systems (NYESAS). to ensure the inclusion of the various youth voices, needs, aspiration and youth recommendations, RYAF signed agreement with FAO to facilitate the consultation and ensure the youth voices are inclusively captured in the strategy. in the process of consultation, RYAF partnered with Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, National Youth Council and District Authority to organize the focus groups discussion to the youth from all 30 districts of Rwanda from 6 to 15th September 2022, for collecting the voices (Youth opportunities, challenges, recommendation...) to incorporate in the National Youth Employment Strategy In Agrifood System while ensuring the strategy will really be responding to their needs specifically focusing on employment and entrepreneurshop promotion among them.
Finally, 602 youth were engaged including 293 Male (49%), 309 Female (51%), and 23 youth with disabilities (3%).
No | District | TOTAL | Male | Female | Disability | |||
Number | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
1 | Bugesera | 20 | 7 | 35% | 13 | 65% | 0 | 0% |
2 | Burera | 19 | 8 | 42% | 11 | 58% | 2 | 11% |
3 | Gakenke | 21 | 9 | 43% | 12 | 57% | 2 | 10% |
4 | Gasabo | 21 | 15 | 71% | 6 | 29% | 1 | 5% |
5 | Gatsibo | 19 | 12 | 63% | 7 | 37% | 0 | 0% |
6 | Gicumbi | 22 | 11 | 50% | 11 | 50% | 5 | 23% |
7 | Gisagara | 22 | 9 | 41% | 13 | 59% | 2 | 9% |
8 | Huye | 21 | 10 | 48% | 11 | 52% | 0 | 0% |
9 | Kamonyi | 19 | 6 | 32% | 13 | 68% | 0 | 0% |
10 | Karongi | 20 | 13 | 65% | 7 | 35% | 1 | 5% |
11 | Kayonza | 22 | 11 | 50% | 11 | 50% | 1 | 5% |
12 | Kicukiro | 25 | 13 | 52% | 12 | 48% | 1 | 4% |
13 | Kirehe | 20 | 11 | 55% | 9 | 45% | 1 | 5% |
14 | Muhanga | 21 | 7 | 33% | 14 | 67% | 0 | 0% |
15 | Musanze | 21 | 11 | 52% | 10 | 48% | 0 | 0% |
16 | Ngoma | 20 | 8 | 40% | 12 | 60% | 1 | 5% |
17 | Ngororero | 18 | 8 | 44% | 10 | 56% | 0 | 0% |
18 | Nyabihu | 21 | 8 | 38% | 13 | 62% | 0 | 0% |
19 | Nyagatare | 18 | 9 | 50% | 9 | 50% | 0 | 0% |
20 | Nyamagabe | 19 | 8 | 42% | 11 | 58% | 0 | 0% |
21 | Nyamasheke | 17 | 10 | 59% | 7 | 41% | 0 | 0% |
22 | Nyanza | 21 | 9 | 43% | 12 | 57% | 0 | 0% |
23 | Nyarugenge | 25 | 14 | 56% | 11 | 44% | 0 | 0% |
24 | Nyaruguru | 22 | 11 | 50% | 11 | 50% | 1 | 5% |
25 | Rubavu | 20 | 9 | 45% | 11 | 55% | 0 | 0% |
26 | Ruhango | 14 | 8 | 57% | 6 | 43% | 2 | 14% |
27 | Rulindo | 20 | 11 | 55% | 9 | 45% | 0 | 0% |
28 | Rusizi | 16 | 10 | 63% | 6 | 38% | 0 | 0% |
29 | Rutsiro | 19 | 8 | 42% | 11 | 58% | 0 | 0% |
30 | Rwamagana | 19 | 9 | 47% | 10 | 53% | 3 | 16% |
TOTAL | 602 | 293 | 49% | 309 | 51% | 23 | 4% | |
As results, its was found that majority of youth respondent 9 have highest preference of rearing Pig and Chicken rather than any other livestock. in terms of crop production, majority has highest preference on horticulture productsions. After the Focus Group discussions, the participants were shared with the questionnaire customized google form, for the research triangulation. The results in google questionnaire proved the findings in the Groups discussions. Among 202 respondents (Via google forms), 51% have highest preference of horticulture, while the remaining crops share the rest (Irish potato (15.5%), Maize (15.5%), coffee(5.4%) mostly in Western province, , mushroom (2%) and others. In livestock the highest preference went to small livestock (93.1%), and in small livestock, the highest preference is on pig farming (44.1%), followed by poultry farming (40.1.%), goat (6.4%), Rabbit (1.5%), sheep (3%) and cattle (3.5) mostly in Eastern Province,
Various challenges and opportunities were identified along with drawing recommendations to responsible organs to ensure that youth can be facilitated to use the challenges as business and employment opportunities. The main challenges identified includes youth mindset via a vis agribusiness, youth limited access to finance, limited youth right employment and agripreneurship skills, limited subsidy/incentives to youth factors of productions including inputs, land, and quality standardization. Finally, the youth provided their recommendations to various responsible organs and those mainly includes strengthening the capacity of RYAF to provide more agripreneurship services and strategic advocacy to youth in agribusiness, provide the incentives to all youth having an direct involvement with agriculture starting from academic level, access to land, access to agro-inputs, access to financial services, and access to market.