CRS in Rwanda

Rwanda, the “land of a thousand hills,” is a verdant nation that is home to the largest rainforest in Africa and a third of the world’s gorillas. Landlocked in East Africa and roughly the size of Massachusetts, Rwanda is the continent’s most densely populated country with 13.2 million people. It is also largely agrarian. About 75% of the population depend on farming for their livelihoods.

Rwanda is a country situated in Central Africa, bordered to the north by Uganda, to the east by Tanzania, to the south by Burundi, and to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The GDP per capita is $997.98 (IMF, 2024) and the country is ranked the 4th least corrupt country in Africa (Corruption Perception Index, TIR 2015).

Since 1960, CRS has supported vulnerable families living in Rwanda, aligning to the CRS Global Strategy 2030.

CRS Rwanda is working in three key programming areas:

Health and Nutrition, Agriculture and Food Security Youth Entrepreneurship and Development

By leveraging past and current successes, CRS Rwanda will continue to expand in these programming areas while strengthening other sectors such as market systems development and youth digital skills. CRS Rwanda also continues to provide strategic institutional capacity-strengthening support to the Catholic Church in Rwanda to reinforce professional operating practices, improve management systems and promote strategic planning.

Health and Nutrition

USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose / Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development Program

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS

USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose is a five-year, USAID-funded program with a broad focus on strengthening governance and coordination of inclusive nutrition and early childhood development service delivery at national and decentralized levels. It aims to improve access and availability of high-quality inclusive nurturing care services, and increase family resources and skills to provide optimum nurturing care to promote healthy growth and development of children in the target areas with an emphasis on their first 1,000 days of life. CRS is implementing the program in a consortium with four partners across 10 districts. In the first two years, the project renovated 174 community early childhood development centers nationwide, providing a safe space for over 8,000 children to learn, play, and develop social skills. Reaching 2.1 million participants, the project trained over 30,000 community volunteers who follow up on the health and nutrition of children, as well as pregnant mothers, treat children suffering from malnutrition, and teach parents how to prepare a balanced meal for their children. Lastly, the project initiated over 8,000 community-based savings and internal lending communities (SILC), and continues to leverage its strong partnerships with national institutions.

Feed the Future Orora Wihaze

As a sub-contractor under the USAID-funded Feed the Future project, Orora Wihaze (“Raise Animals for Self-Sufficiency" in Kinyarwanda), CRS works closely with Land O’Lakes Venture 37 and other consortium members in engaging local partners and private sector actors in eight districts of Rwanda to strengthen the animal sourced food market system. CRS’ focus under its Scope of Work is to increase demand for animal sourced food (ASF) consumption for women and children by facilitating interventions in nutrition extension, ASF product development and distribution, and women and youth empowerment using a market systems development approach. CRS has reached 83,312 individuals through its 1,644 community volunteers.

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS

Sustainable, Targeted, Responsive approach to Optimize Nutrition and Growth (STRONG)

Photo by Melissa Cooperman for CRS

STRONG is a global CRS project implemented in seven countries including Rwanda, targeting adolescent girls and young women aged 10-19 years old, that is funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and began in Fiscal Year 2023. STRONG seeks to break the cycle of malnutrition among this cohort by improving services in health care and education to meet their needs, providing Iron and folic acid supplements to fill nutritional gaps, and supporting positive health and nutrition behaviors. The STRONG project will complement the work of the USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose program, also managed by CRS, and the Government of Rwanda initiatives by improving adolescent nutrition.

Agriculture

AID-I GLR (The Accelerated Innovation and Delivery Initiative in the Great Lakes Region)

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS

AID-I GLR is a two-year, multi-stakeholder project funded by USAID whose goal is to contribute to improved food security and nutrition through the rapid adoption at scale of proven technologies and innovations by farming households. As a scaling partner for this project in Rwanda, CRS promotes nutrient-dense crop varieties among smallholder farmers in need while creating linkages with its nutrition-focused USAID GKB program. Through its intervention, CRS seeks to ensure that vulnerable households in USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose-targeted districts are exposed to and subsequently utilize quality seeds for nutrient-rich crops. AID-I GLR provides sample seed packs, and training on best agricultural and nutrition practices among USAID Gikuriro Kuri Bose program-sponsored early childhood development centers and conducts communication campaigns on best farming and nutrition practices with communities. In Fiscal Year 2023, AID-I GLR supported 250,000 households.

Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment

Gera Ku Ntego Youth Project

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS

CRS’ privately-funded Gera Ku Ntego project provides sustainable support for income generation to youth in eight districts of Rwanda by providing training, marketing, and establishing youth-focused digital Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) so they can better access financial resources to expand their micro, small, and medium-size enterprises and benefit from sustainable business development. The project brings together the private sector, Caritas Rwanda, and the Government of Rwanda as key stakeholders to create an ecosystem where youth can thrive. In 2024, the project created 250 SILC groups, supporting more than 6,000 youth. In addition, youth were supported in opening individual bank accounts, securing loans from financial institutions, and creating businesses.

Youth for Youth (Y4Y)

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS  

As part of its focus on youth entrepreneurship, CRS is implementing the privately funded three-year Youth for Youth (Y4Y) project which supports digital entrepreneurship for youth in harder-to-reach rural districts of Rwanda. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of youth entrepreneurs in rural Rwanda through the provision and facilitation of digital and in-person solutions. In 2024, the Youth for Youth project is working in 10 districts, reaching 48,714 participants.

Partnership & Capacity Strengthening

Photo by Simeon Uwiringiyeyesu for CRS

For more than a decade, CRS has provided strategic institutional strengthening support to the Catholic Church in Rwanda with the objective of improved professional management practices. As a result, the Church has strengthened its management systems, engages in strategic planning, and uses best practices for leadership, negotiation, and human and financial resource management, including improved compliance with local tax regulation and labor laws. Throughout all of its programming, CRS invests in long-term partnerships and aims to provide capacity strengthening to its local partners based on documented needs.

Local Partners

• Episcopal Conference of Rwanda
• University of Global Health Equity (UGHE)
• Umuhuza Organization
• Caritas Rwanda
• African Evangelical Enterprise (AEE)
• Young Women Christian Association (YWCA)
• DUHAMIC-ADRI

CRS' History in Rwanda

1960-1997: From the 1960s until the late 1980s, CRS implemented large-scale nationwide school feeding programs. In the 1980s, CRS increased its focus on small enterprise development and agricultural production. During the early 1990s, CRS managed US government food commodities and other aid to respond to the needs of a population suffering increasingly from unrest and fighting.

1994: In June 1994, CRS began an immediate response to the short-term emergency needs of a ravaged country, torn by the genocide against the Tutsi, and continued this emergency support through 1997. CRS also initiated several agricultural rehabilitation programs to give returnees and internally displaced people the necessary seeds and tools to relaunch agricultural activities, the chief livelihood of rural Rwandans.

1997-2001: Between 1997 and 2001, CRS programs shifted from emergency aid to transition programming. This included the construction of houses for the displaced and institutional feeding at safety net centers caring for orphaned children, street children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. Agriculture activities focused on lowland development and watershed management to increase household crop productivity for the most vulnerable. Microfinance efforts also began in this period. With US government funding and in collaboration with four local Catholic dioceses, CRS undertook a large youth peacebuilding project for out-of-school youth, which at that time represented 80% of school-aged children. The project created solidarity camps in which children received vocational training, human rights education, trauma counseling, and skills for conflict management, among other activities.

2001-2005: From the turn of the millennium through 2005, CRS programming focused on livelihood interventions and greater engagement with its Caritas partners as primary program implementers. CRS supported landless farmers, while also supporting for the first time HIV-affected households with food aid. Food aid was subsequently phased out and CRS introduced and scaled up bio-intensive agriculture techniques, nutritional education, and participation in Savings and Internal Lending Communities. The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative addressed the pathological threats to cassava, improved the quality of cassava production, and improved the overall security and well-being of vulnerable households. With the launching of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), CRS dramatically increased HIV/AIDS activities in 2004 by supporting Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) services to rural health centers, building community capacity to care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), and promoting Abstinence and Be Faithful interventions in schools and communities. OVC activities increased in 2006 with CRS participation in the PEPFAR-funded Community HIV&AIDS Mobilization Program, where CRS supported Caritas Rwanda as the largest participating local organization, serving over 15,000 children. CRS’ OVC activities encompassed support to both in-school and out-of-school youth through direct school fees and materials, vocational training, and training of community leaders in childcare, counseling, and children’s rights. Community volunteers and older OVCs participated in Savings and Internal Lending Communities.

2005-2010: Starting in 1999, but intensifying during this period, CRS provided support to the Catholic Church to establish national and diocesan-level Justice & Peace Commissions, working with the Church to build capacity of local parishes to promote reconciliation, education on human rights, and encourage participation in the Gacaca courts. In 2008, CRS initiated follow-up support to increase direct interventions through small community-based Christian entities to promote community reconciliation.

2014-Now: CRS’ programming continues to span multiple sectors including nutrition, early childhood development, agriculture and livelihoods, market systems development, youth entrepreneurship and employability, partnership, and capacity strengthening. This work builds on the decades of commitment to recovery and development that CRS has demonstrated in Rwanda and leverages strong relationships with government entities, local partners, and private sector actors. Increasingly in Rwanda, CRS seeks to play a facilitative role in its programming, harnessing these relationships to convene stakeholders around prescient issues impacting socio-economic development in Rwanda and develop joint solutions for greater sustainability and scale of impact.