Rural Youth Employment Opportunities: Support to Integrated Agribusiness Hubs in Rwanda (R-YES) project.

Year: June 2020 – December 2024

Country/Area: Rwanda

Client: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Description:

Rural Youth Employment Opportunities: Support to Integrated Agribusiness Hubs in Rwanda (R-YES) is a 5 -year project on youth agribusiness incubation in Rwanda, funded by IFAD and BMZ. R-YES project is part of a larger IFAD program that will focus on creation of employment opportunities for rural youth in Africa through support to integrated agribusiness hubs. The goal of the project is to contribute to sustainable employment (self and decent wage) and income generating opportunities for 3,000 youth (including 1,200 direct beneficiaries and 1,800 indirect) in agriculture related activities in Rwanda through an integrated agribusiness hub.

Specifically, the project will:

1. Build integrated agri-business capacities of rural youth by identifying strategic partnerships to develop sustainable and innovative agribusiness hub, and
2. Generate empirical evidence of the developed and tested integrated agribusiness hub models to inform policy to drive scaling up the models to create jobs for youth.

R-YES will deliver the following key transformations through the integrated Agribusiness hub:

1. A robust system that empowers and nurtures youth for self and wage employment in agribusiness
2. New youth led agribusiness enterprises incubated and emerging, thus providing an avenue for self-employment.
3. Holistic wage seeking graduates (with competences beyond technical skills) absorbed in evolving agribusiness labour markets.
4. Policy improvements and scale-up of proven models by governments and other development partners.

R-YES achievements so far

1. Ten Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) signed between different partners including Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum (RYAF), Rwanda Polytechnic (RP), IPRC Kigali, IPRC Gishari, IPRC Musanze, Rwanda TVET Board (RTB), Kavumu TVET Board, EAV Kabutare, College Foundation Sina Gerard and IFAD – SPIU.
2. Twenty-six (26) Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) signed with agribusiness companies.
3. 10 agribusiness curriculums developed
4. 353 rural youth trained in the first cohort
5. Forty-one (41) rural youth employed in wage pathway
6. Fourteen (14) rural youth employed in self pathway
7. Eight (8) R-YES videos developed and disseminated
8. Ten (10) R-YES success stories developed and disseminated
9. One (1) R-YES flyer/factsheet
10. One (1) R-YES courses handbook
11. At least five (5) R-YES posters developed