In the development of the fifth Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA-5), the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources has committed to integrating a food systems approach towards achieving sustainable and resilient food systems, thus incorporating indicators that align PSTA-5 to the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) and Post Malabo actions, as well as food systems more generally.
With the draft of the PSTA-5’s narrative, activity plan and results framework currently being reviewed by stakeholders, this workshop, organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), served as a first step to validate the integration of food systems thinking into PSTA-5 indicators and to review how the indicators align with the CAADP, the African Common Position on Food Systems (ACP-FS) and other food systems reporting frameworks.
The workshop was opened by Dr. James Warner, the country lead of IFPRI’s Rwanda Strategy and Support Program (RSSP), where he reviewed the objectives of the workshop and invited Dr. Chantal Ingabire, MINAGRI’s Director General of Planning, to offer the opening remarks
In her opening remarks, Dr. Chantal Ingabire, provided the general direction of the ministry, the importance and goals of the workshop on aligning PSTA 5 indicators with the 4th CAADP review and the Global Food Systems Dashboard. She emphasized the importance of maintaining the momentum in Rwanda as evidenced by being the top performer in providing data for the CAADP review. She then focused on goals of PSTA-5 which is for Rwanda to have a sustainable and resilient food system, represented in the current slogan: “Tugire Ibiryo” (ie. Let’s have food). She also discussed the central role of food systems in Rwanda’s aiming to becoming a food secure country with a both a wealthy and healthy population, thus highlighting the importance of elevating agriculture to new heights of sustainability that would lead to the reduction of the poverty head count ratio. She continued by acknowledging and appreciating the collaboration of MINAGRI’s partners and proceeded to outline the goals of the workshop which were to provide a technical platform to validate the indicators that are instrumental in the monitoring and evaluation of the PSTA-5 framework and narrative.
Dr. John Ulimwengu, a Senior Research Fellow in IFPRI’S Development Strategies and Governance Unit working on food systems mapping in select African countries provided the first presentation where he briefly explained the theory of change of food system transformation and emphasized the importance of separating food system activities from food system outcomes. He emphasized the need for PSTA-5 alignment to different policies to achieve safe and sustainable healthy diets. He concluded by emphasizing the importance of aligning the strategy’s results framework to CAADP and ACP-FS as it would enhance accountability and visibility, promote the efficient use of resources and enhance regional integration and cooperation.
In his presentation, Dr. James Warner, delved deeper into the analysis of PSTA-5 indicators within the Food Systems Dashboard (https://www.foodsystemsdashboard.org/) . He began by emphasizing the importance of having a common local understanding of the meaning of food systems for Rwanda and proceeded to provide a brief overview of the potential Food System Dashboard indicators that could be considered for inclusion into PSTA-5, such as monitoring post-harvest losses beyond major cereal crops to include fruits and vegetables.
In the afternoon, Mr. Mads Knudsen, co-founder of Vanguard Economics and the lead consultant in coordinating the PSTA-5 document, presented how PSTA-5 is aligned in the national policy framework, the various interventions poised to address the priority areas and the indicators to be used to monitor and evaluate success of planned activities. Participants provided feedback and insights for including in the revised document.
The workshop concluded with participants understanding the complexity of the food system and the importance of aligning the activities of the strategic plan to other policies, such as CAADP, ACP-FS for better reporting and the importance of governance to the system as it could fall prey to the tragedy of the commons due to the lack of adequate leadership.
About the Authors
Josue Niyonsingiza, is a Senior Research Analyst at IFPRI, Rwanda Strategy Support Program
Dr James Warner, is the program leader for IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program
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