Rwanda scales up fight against hunger – report

RWANDA has escalated the fight against hunger according to a report by Actionaid called ‘Who’s really fighting hunger?’ The report that was released early this week revealed that Rwanda among 28 developing nations surveyed has made substantial progress in the fight against hunger jumping six positions. According to the Actionaid Rwanda Country Director Irene Uwamariya, the achievement by Rwanda within a period of 16 years is tremendous and takes a strong political will and a determined population to attain. “Government’s pro-poor policies that empower smallholder farmers like one cow per family, farmers’ easy access to extension services and social protection schemes under vision 2020 Umurenge and shared lessons,” said Uwamariya.Uwamariya, however, called for the need for a strong legal framework that provides constitutional and legislative guarantees of right to food in Rwanda if the country is to consolidate its achievements. She also said that Rwanda is set to meet the MDG target number one of halving the child malnutrition just one year after the 2015 deadline – way ahead of many wealthier nations. The Minister of Agriculture, Agnes kalibata, who attended the report launching, pointed out that if all people invested their energy in helping one another to overcome poverty, Rwanda would beat the deadline by far. The report, that is compiled annually, also shows that 20 out of 28 poor nations are off track to halving hunger by 2015 and 12 of these are going backwards. Ends

National

Rwanda scales up fight against hunger – report