AGRA’s new five-year Rwanda Strategic Plan was, on August 14, launched with a commitment to create 132,000 dignifying and fulfilling work opportunities for the youth within its five-year lifespan, among other expected outcomes from its implementation, according to its developers.

The development was lauded by officials saying that it is in line with the Government of Rwanda to address unemployment affecting the country’s young people.

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While unemployment rate stood at 20.5 per cent in 2022, it was higher among the youth, with 25.6 per cent of them being jobless – or at least one in every four young Rwandans being unemployed, according to the Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2022 by the National Institute of Statistics f Rwanda (NISR).

Under the abovementioned strategy which runs from 2023 through 2027, AGRA intends to invest $50 million – about Rwf60 billion – through interventions including technical assistance, and grants to players involved in the Rwandan agri-food sector. This investment is more than double the $20 million it channelled in a concluded strategy.

Its overall goal is to achieve thriving agribusiness small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to better serve small-scale producers.

It indicated that investment in high-value crops value chain would create, both on and off farm, dignifying jobs for youth and young women.

According to the Minister of Youth, Jean Nepo Abdallah Utumatwishima, such initiatives are needed to contribute to addressing the current situation where more than a third of Rwanda’s youth population was neither in employment nor in education or training.

The number of youth population who were neither in employment nor in education or training was more than 1.2 million in 2022, corresponding to about 35.6 per cent of the youth population, indicated the Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2022 by NISR.

"Our service is to ensure our youth get employment opportunities,” Utumatwishima said, citing opportunities in agriculture and agri-food systems which include jobs in food production, trade, services to farmers, and in value addition to farm produce.

"We are trying to see if we can put a lot of youth in agriculture and agri-food systems. We think whether you are educated or not, if you can still eat, you can still participate in the food industry,” Utumatwishima said, expressing commitment to work with partners like AGRA and the Ministry of Agriculture to design programmes that can advance agricultural entrepreneurship among the youth.

The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Ildephonse Musafiri, said some young people who graduate are running across the country in search of ‘decent’ jobs, but the majority are ignoring the agriculture sector.

"People think that agriculture doesn’t have decent jobs. So, this strategy that AGRA is bringing to support the initiative of the government to create decent jobs on the farm will be a game changer,” he said, pointing out that that it is in line with Rwanda’s national strategy for transformation target to create more than 200,000 jobs every year.

"It’s a very big contribution to the national strategy and the vision of Rwanda as well. So, it means a lot; it means money, well-being, and wealth. It’s really something we should commend and support as well,” he said.

The AGRA Board Chair, Hailemariam Dessalegn, said they will work on addressing constraints that cause Rwandan youth, especially women, to shy away from agriculture, "by working with policymakers, vendors of agriculture machinery, markets, and trained experts to modernise agriculture in ways that attract a significant number of our unemployed youth to the agri-food sector as a thriving and fulfilling career option.”

By supporting agricultural SMEs to become more competitive, the strategy will spur employment, Agnes Kalibata, AGRA President, said.

"Thriving SMEs can better serve more small-scale farmers, offer a diversity of inputs and markets, and can create direct and indirect work opportunities in the agricultural sector for young people, who represent over 70 per cent of the population under 35 years,” Kalibata said.

Overall support at a glance

AGRA Rwanda Country Manager, Jean Pierre Ndagijimana, said the strategy will intervene across the country in seed system, sustainable farming, inclusive finance, markets and trade, as well as support government capacity to regulate and coordinate actors involved in production, processing, services and trade of targeted value chains in staple crops, horticulture, fruits trees and livestock.

Overall, the strategy seeks to reach 1.5 million small holder farmers and ensure that they adopt sustainable farming practices that are resilient to climate change shocks. It also aims to support the expansion of 500 agri-food SMEs, and to ensure that $250 million (investment) is leveraged by private sector, and $500 million leveraged by government.