This Environment and Social Management Framework (ESMF) relates to the Rwandan Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation (LWH) Project which is being financed by the World Bank. The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) is the agency responsible for implementing the LWH, including the provisions of this RPF.

 

This ESMF is to be used by the MINAGRI in order to ensure that the World Bank safeguard OP 4.01 for environmental assessment are adequately addressed. MINAGRI should in addition ensure that the relevant capacity and training needs are established in order for the recommended measures to be implemented effectively.

Both the economic growth and the poverty-reduction objectives for Rwanda rely critically on agricultural growth.Agriculture is identified by the Government as one of the key sectors in both its poverty reduction strategy, the EDPRS, [1] and in its longer-term Vision 2020 document.

 

Agriculture is the backbone of Rwanda’s economy, accounting for about 39 percent of GDP, 80 percent of employment, and 63 percent of foreign exchange earnings. It also provides 90 percent of the country’s food needs. Total arable land in Rwanda is slightly above 1.5 million ha, 90% of which is found on hillsides. The sector faces several challenges: (i) a binding land constraint that rules out extensification (bringing more and more land under cultivation); (ii) small average land holdings (0.3 ha); (iii) poor water management (uneven rainfall and ensuing variability in production) resulting from very low levels of irrigation (15,000 ha in the whole country); (iv) the need for greater (public and private) capacity from the district to the national levels and the lack of extension services for farmers; and (v) limited commercial orientation constrained by poor access to output and financial markets. Without the option of extensification, agricultural intensification must take place in the context of a potentially fertile, but challenging, physical environment. Steep terrains and the highest population density in sub-Saharan Africa (355 inhabitants per km²) make good land husbandry a strict necessity (to curtail erosion and otherwise maintain the quality of the soil), as well as an environmental prerogative. Arable land on hillsides constitutes the vast majority of the total agricultural land in the country, but erosion costs the country 1.4 million tons of fertile soils per year. Given its high dependence on rain fed agriculture, irrigation is critical to reducing the sector’s vulnerability to climatic variation and to aligning the right incentives for intensification.