Climate disasters are wiping 1.4 per cent annually from Rwanda’s gross domestic product (GDP), signaling an urgent need to increase investments in the management of climate shocks so as to build the resilience of households, experts have said.

Experts at a high-level policy forum to address climate shocks, which took place in Kigali on December 9, also said that there was need to integrate social protection programmes in the management of climate shocks. 

Ivan Murenzi, the Deputy Director-General of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, said that climate change is affecting the country at both the national level and household level.

"Shocks caused by disasters such as drought and floods are affecting agricultural production, and decreasing output. This usually triggers a rise in agricultural commodities prices as we experienced last year causing inflation,” he said.

He said that the climate shocks have reduced households’ consumption capacity by eight percent.

"This means for example that if you used to buy goods worth Rwf10,000 per week, this could decrease by eight percent. The climate shocks also slow poverty reduction progress,” he said.

Citing the Fifth Integrated Household Living Survey (EICV5) that was conducted from October 2016 to October 2017, he said that due to prolonged drought, the reduction in poverty levels was small compared to previous years. 

 "We need strong interventions to manage climate shocks,” he said.

Murenzi said that 34.6 per cent of households have reported negative shocks caused by drought, floods, landslides, crop pests, and diseases as well as livestock disease.

"Statistics show that 9.7 per cent are affected by shocks caused by high food prices, high agricultural inputs and loss of employment,” he said.

He said that there are high shocks caused by drought in rural Eastern and Southern provinces.

Statistics, he said, show that 42.5 per cent of households in rural southern provinces are affected by drought as 65 per cent of households in Eastern provinces face similar shocks.

"We have realised that the poor are more vulnerable to such shocks. Social protection programmes reduce poverty but they are compromised by shocks which affect people and therefore we see that  VUP-direct support lowers the poverty rate for beneficiaries by five percentage points which is surprisingly little,” he said.

According to Edith Heines, Representative and Country Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), there is a need for linking social protection programmes and climate change responses.

"Rwanda is prone to shocks, especially climate shocks. We have heard that there is a loss of 1.4 percent of GDP just due to climate disasters. We need to bring together social protection programmes and climate disaster management to add elements to social protection programs to manage the impact of shocks on the households,” she said.

She said that climate shocks could increase if no urgent action is taken, adding, "We have to support households before and after the shocks making households more resilient to shocks to avoid falling into poverty.”

Drought shocks looming

Unexpected dry spell in seasons where rains are usually plenty is hurting the fortunes of farmers in the Eastern Province, parts of Southern province, and Kigali city.

The unusual dry spell had been predicted by the weathermen in August when releasing the September to December 2021 rainfall seasonal forecast.

According to Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board, the preliminary assessment shows that over 37,000 hectares were in need of urgent irrigation intervention to help farmers offset potential losses.

Charles Bucagu, Deputy Director-General of Agriculture Research and Technology Transfer told The New Times that quick intervention is only helping to irrigate close to 8000 hectares on 162 sites that are consolidated and grown with beans, maize, and vegetables.

"We also provide early maturing seed such as beans, sweet potato vines and vegetables, and drought-tolerant cassava cuttings. The government has provided an additional budget of Rwf1.2 billion to support interventions to mitigate drought in Eastern province,” he said.

Speaking to the media at a high-level policy forum to address climate shocks on Thursday, Assumpta Ingabire, the State Minister in Charge of Social Affairs and Social Protection in the Ministry of Local Government pledged government support to households that could be affected by the current dry spells in Eastern province and other areas of the country.

"We will work together with the agricultural ministry and other ministries to provide food to households that might be affected in Eastern province,” she said.

Besides drought, floods also affected farmers this year.

A report by the Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management has shown that 2,685 hectares of crops were damaged by different disasters namely heavy rains, hail, strong wind, landslides from January to October 12 this year.