The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) president, Kanayo Nwanze arrived in the country last night for a four-day official visit. His trip aims to strengthening Rwanda’s cooperation with the UN agency.

During his visit the IFAD president is set to meet top government officials including President Paul Kagame, Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi as well as officials in the ministries of agriculture and finance.

He will also visit community-based watershed management projects supported by his organisation in for first-hand evaluation on how project participants have improved their lives and discuss challenges they continue to face.

Nwanze this morning paid a courtesy call to the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Géraldine Mukeshimana at the Ministry’s headquarters in Kayciru where they deliberated on how to further strengthen collaboration between the government and IFAD for continued implementation of the government’s strategic plan for agricultural transformation.

This plan aims to make agriculture a more knowledge-intensive and market-oriented sector.

Speaking after his meeting, Nwanze called on the government to involve farmers in the decision-making process. This would entail "having policies that encourage the private sector to partner not only with the public sector, but also with the producers who are the local farmers,” he said.

He noted that that was part of the reason that his organization was introducing a new strategy; 4P (private, public, producer partnerships) that includes farmers into the equation.

"Having this holistic approach to agriculture productivity and income generation, Rwanda can transform it’s agricultural sector productivity for the better,” the IFAD president added.  

Nwanze added that it was also important to give attention to women in rural areas since there were the major providers of labour constituting about 90 per cent of agricultural labour.

He commended the country for being a prominent example of how targeted investment in agriculture has led to economic success, thus becoming a model for other African countries to follow.

On her part Minister Mukeshimana appreciated IFAD’s continued assistance to the country’s agriculture sector. She said that the government was keen to embrace new practices and approaches to diversify from traditional exports and add value to farmers’ outputs.

IFAD has had a prominent role in financing and supporting agriculture themed projects since 1981. So far, the UN international financial institution has financed 15 programmes and projects in Rwanda directly contributing $239.4 million (about Rwf 165 Billion) directly benefiting about 534,300 rural households.