Rwanda’s Circular Food Systems Project to Showcase Sustainable Future at Kigali Learning Event
Kigali- 26th March 2024 – On 27th March 2024, the Circular Food Systems for Rwanda project will host a one-day learning event at Kigali Marriot Hotel, in Kigali to showcase how the project is helping Rwanda embrace circular economy for a sustainable food future.
The event will bring together multiple stakeholder institutions including public institutions, the private sector, civil society and non-government organizations, academia, development partners, media, technical assistance providers, and beneficiaries of the facility , mainly small and medium enterprises working to scale circular solutions across Rwanda’s agriculture and food sectors.
The event also aims to foster knowledge exchange and collaboration and will offer an opportunity to reflect on the progress and lessons gathered thus far during the implementation of the project.
The event will help beneficiaries and critical stakeholders to share feedback and learnings to help improve the delivery and replicability of the key project components through exhibition displays, roundtable discussions, presentations, and group activities the event promises to be an engaging program.
Project context
Launched in 2021, Circular Food Systems for Rwanda is a three-year project funded by the IKEA Foundation and managed by a consortium of partners led by the World Resources Institute (WRI), in partnership with the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), Resonance, African Circular Economy Alliance (ACEA), African Circular Economy Network (ACEN), and Rwanda Cleaner Production and Climate Innovation Centre (CPCIC). The consortium is composed of organisations at the forefront of momentum-building for a circular economy for food at the national (CPCIC), regional (ACEN, ACEA), and global (WRI, PACE, Resonance) levels.
The project vision is to foster resilient, circular, and regenerative food systems that improve livelihoods and provide positive social and environmental outcomes for communities in Rwanda and across Africa.
In pursuit of this vision, our mission is to catalyze cross-sectoral action that will:
- Scale and support the adoption of circular business models within the agricultural and food sectors in Rwanda (Workstream 1).
- Help foster an enabling environment to support a circular economy for agriculture and food via smart policy design (Workstream 2).
- Generate and distill actionable learnings to accelerate food system transformations in other geographies (Monitoring, evaluation, learning, and communications).
Achievements and Future Directions
The project has already made significant strides, including providing technical assistance to seven SMEs to enhance their circular business models and conducting extensive market player mapping to foster collaboration within the food system. Furthermore, the project’s policy workstream has successfully convened multi-stakeholder meetings, resulting in actionable policy recommendations to advance Rwanda’s circular food system.
The Rwandan context
Rwanda is among the most advanced countries in Africa in the circular economy transition. This is because, for almost two decades, Rwanda has put environment and climate change at the heart of its transformation journey. Environment and climate are currently at the center of policies, programs, plans, and initiatives to ensure sustainable development. In Rwanda, the circular economy is a strategy to achieve green growth and is a way to tackle climate change.
