By: Gracie Rosenbach and David J Spielman
On April 28, IFPRI Rwanda hosted a virtual discussion of the 2021 IFPRI Global Food Policy Report: Transforming Food Systems after COVID-19. With an impressive panel of high-level speakers and over 120 registered participants, the event brought together high-level thinking with tough questions about Rwanda’s own food systems transformation and its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although many countries – including Rwanda – made pointed efforts to insulate their agricultural sectors and food systems from many of the pandemic’s most dire effects, it was difficult to escape the economic consequences of reduced demand for a wide range of goods and services caused by lockdowns and other restrictions on mobility, commerce, and trade. The 2021 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) reflects on lessons learned from the pandemic and offers a suite of policy recommendations to help rebuild with an eye to more resilient and inclusive food systems.
Dr. David Spielman, head of the IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program, kicked off the event by framing the GFPR discussion within the Rwandan context, reminding participants of the impressive steps taken by the Government of Rwanda on both the public health and food system fronts to stem the spread of COVID-19 while keeping resources flowing to farmers and food to consumers. “I’m fortunate to be working in Rwanda, alongside people who are truly dedicated to an ambitious plan for transformation – a national transformation, a transformation in agriculture, and a transformation in health and nutrition,” he said.
Dr. Johan Swinnen, IFPRI’s director general, went on to highlight key themes in the GFPR, noting that income losses resulting from COVID-19 prevention measures were the primary drivers of increased poverty around the world, and that the nutritional impacts of income losses could lead to much higher incidences of child wasting in the near future, with significant inequality in terms of who carries the burden of both income and nutrition outcomes.
Dr. Neha Kumar, a senior research fellow at IFPRI and an author of a GFPR chapter, put a finer point on the issue of inequality. She highlighted not only the effects of COVID-19 disruptions on the urban poor, especially informal workers and women, but also on intra-household dynamics. Despite unprecedented social protection responses around the globe, evidence suggests that the effects of the pandemic were manifestly different for women and children than for men as a result of diverse coping strategies, gender norms, and intimate partner violence.
These findings all point to the importance of building greater preparedness into future strategies and policies with investments in climate change mitigation, early warning systems, gender-sensitive programming, and social protection capacity and adaptability.
The Honorable Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana, then highlighted Rwanda’s efforts to swiftly enact containment measures to protect the population from COVID-19, while putting in place an exemption for the agriculture sector to “keep food moving from farms to plates.” “The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us,” she said, “but it has also demonstrated how essential and how resilient the agriculture sector can be, and how agriculture can be an important driver of the systems transformation process.”
Dr. Anita Asiimwe, Director General of the National Child Development Agency (NCDA), reiterated the importance of Rwanda’s food system and spoke of the strong collaboration between the NCDA and MINAGRI to ensure the availability of nutritious foods, especially to children, and especially during the strictest period of COVID-19 restrictions in March to May 2020. “In only two weeks, [the Government] was able to purchase 500,000 eggs from 32 farmers and distribute them to over 90,000 children across the country. It was a win-win for everyone,” she said. Even during the pandemic, she found that the number of children with acute malnutrition continued to steadily decrease thanks to the close partnership between NCDA and MINAGRI.
Ambassador Nicola Bellomo, Head of the European Union Delegation to Rwanda, joined the panel to highlight the EU’s continuing commitment to Rwanda’s agriculture sector. “We all know that the sector supports the livelihoods of the majority of the Rwandan people, and therefore it must be one of the key drivers of the post-COVID pandemic recovery,” he stated. He also took the opportunity to announce a new European Union external action instrument called “Global Europe” and plans to work with the Government of Rwanda and its stakeholders to develop a 2021-2027 cooperative program “to stimulate pro-poor sustainable and inclusive growth in a way fully aligned with the Rwandan development objectives.”
You can watch the video, find speaker bios, and see the photos from the event here.
About the authors
Gracie Rosenbach is the country program manager of the IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program.
David J Spielman is the program leader of the IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program.
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