KIGALI, March 21 (IPS) – Against a brutally painful historical backdrop, a story of hope and resilience unfolds in Rwanda.
A story that reveals Rwanda’s innovative approach to empowering its people, as an estimated half of the population still lives in poverty. In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, Rwanda was ranked 102nd out of 121 countries with sufficient data to calculate last year’s global hunger index.
In this context, BRAC International signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) to support efforts to empowering people in extreme poverty to develop sustainable livelihood opportunities and break the poverty trap in the long term. This is part of the government’s wider efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
“I am pleased to see the Government of Rwanda taking a leading role in addressing extreme poverty,” said Greg Chen, CEO of BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI), a flagship program of BRAC International.
The MoU was signed on Tuesday 14 March 2023 by Jean Claude Muhire, Program Director in Rwanda of BRAC UPGI, and Samuel Dusengiyumva, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government.
BRAC International is a leading non-profit organization with a mission to empower people and communities in poverty, illiteracy, disease and social injustice, which have touched the lives of more than 100 million people over the past five decades. And now seeks to touch even more lives in the land of a thousand hills through this partnership.
“We are pleased to serve as a partner in promoting the Government of Rwanda’s new National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation (NSSG) and to accelerate the reduction of poverty and extreme poverty,” Muhire said.
The MoU positions BRAC International as a key partner to promote The Government of Rwanda’s new national strategy for sustainable graduation (NSSG), which was recently approved by the government in November 2022 to accelerate the reduction of poverty and extreme poverty in Rwanda and contribute to achieving the goals of the National Strategy for Transformation, 2017 to 2024.
“We are committed to fighting extreme poverty by scaling the multifaceted, evidence-based exam strategy through governments in Africa and Asia, reaching millions more people,” Chen said.
Similar BRAC’s examination methodestablished in Bangladesh in 2002, NSSG defines Graduation as a two-year program for households to benefit from inclusive livelihood programs, multifaceted interventions, access to shock-sensitive social protection services and market access that create an enabling environment for households to “graduate” out of extreme poverty.
To date, BRAC’s Graduation program has reached more than 2.1 million people in Bangladesh alone and supported the expansion of Graduation in an additional 16 countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Guinea, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
Drawing on 20 years of experience implementing, testing and iterating the Graduation approach, BRAC International is extending support in the design, delivery and evaluation of the Graduation program to Rwanda, supporting the local ministry in critical areas.
Areas such as providing technical capacity and expertise in the implementation of the graduation strategy and making available the necessary communication, advocacy and technical resources to ensure smooth implementation of the graduation strategy.
Equally important, the collaboration with the Ministry ensures the scaling up of an inclusive, holistic graduation strategy that includes everything essential for graduation. Overall, efforts will focus on the four key components identified as fundamental to successfully completing the degree.
These essential components include meeting participants’ daily needs such as nutrition and health care, providing education and assets for income generation, financial literacy and savings support, and social empowerment through community engagement and life skills training—all facilitated by coaching that requires regular interactions with participants. Rigorous research by Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo proves that the combination of support and resources provided through this multifaceted approach is critical to long-term impact.
Overall, the degree approach is based on the belief that people living in vulnerable situations can be agents of change if given the tools, skills and hope they need to transform their lives.
With such people-centered concerted efforts, it is only a matter of time before Rwanda is known for much more than its scenic beauty and as home to the cleanest city in Africa. It will also make history by defying all odds to become one of the first countries on the continent to establish a sustainable path out of extreme poverty by 2030.
IPS UN agency report
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service