Rwanda Leads Climate change response 2017

Inside

Forestry: Rwanda set to meet Vision 2020 target

How Rwanda pulled off the plastic bag ban

New e-Waste plant set for launch

Rwanda Tackles Air Pollution

Green Villages Project

wanda R leads climate change response

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Rwanda leads climate change response The race to save the earth from calamitous climate change is on, and Africa is a key player in these efforts.

President Paul Kagame Plants a tree

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28th Meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol enters the final set of negotiations which end with the adoption of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The Amendment adopted sets an ambitious target to phase out the production of hydrofluorocarbons.

In December 2015, 197 countries convened in Paris and agreed that if catastrophic climate change was to be avoided, urgent action needed to be taken to prevent the earth’s temperature from rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

2016 saw the first huge steps taken to realise this great ambition, with Rwanda at the forefront of one and an active participant in the other.

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irst was the 28 th meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol which took place in Kigali from 10 th to 15 thOctober, 2016. It brought together 170 countries from both the developed and developing world and they were welcomed by a ringing call for action in the opening remarks of Mr Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s Minister of Natural Resources: “For many of the world’s most vulnerable nations, including Rwanda, climate change is no longer an issue on the horizon. It’s a reality of our daily lives. From

droughts that destroy our crops to landslides that tragically claim the lives of our sisters and brothers, we know too well the impacts of a warming planet.”

With the gauntlet set down, delegates started a week of intense activity and negotiations.

History is made At 7:00 a.m. on the 15 th of October 2016, history was made as, after more than 24 straight hours of negotiations aimed at arriving at consensus, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol was officially adopted, to the jubilant

applause of the bleary-eyed delegates.

This legally binding commitment was the culmination of 7 years of painstaking negotiations between world powers to hammer out a deal to phase out Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

These are gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and heat pump systems.

Initially, they were promoted as replacements to CFCs because they have zero ozone-depleting potential, unlike CFCs that had wreaked havoc on the ozone layer and resulted in rapid expansion of the “Ozone hole”.

However, it was later discovered that

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Min. Biruta banging gavel at the moment the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol was officially adopted.

they were extremely powerful greenhouse gases, with the potential to heat up the earth 53-14800 times faster than carbon dioxide, hence the need to phase them out.

The Kigali Amendment was hailed as probably the biggest single concrete effort to implement commitments to tackle climate change. This is because it is binding, focuses on a single targetHFCs, and has clear timelines for action for the different parties.

In the first group are the world’s richest nations which are required to reduce production and consumption of HFCs starting 2019. These include EU countries and the U.S. The second group has up to 2024 to freeze the use of HFCs. Most nations, including all African countries, as well as China, are in this category.

The agreement also allowed the world’s hottest countries up to 2028 to freeze HFC use. However, 25 countries, iv

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mostly from Africa, demonstrated admirable resolve to fight climate change by binding themselves to the 2024 target. They are: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Jordan, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, and Turkmenistan.

Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates committed to the 2028 option.

If implemented as agreed, on its own the Kigali Amendment could avoid emissions of over 70 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO 2e) by 2050, and save the world a whopping 0.5ºC increment in temperature by the end of the century.

If implemented as agreed, on its own the Kigali Amendment could avoid emissions of over 70 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) by 2050, and save the world a whopping

0.5ºC

increment in temperature by the end of the century.

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Irreversible momentum Buoyed by the success in Kigali, and the unexpectedly quick coming-into-force of the Paris Agreement on November 4, 2016, the world headed to Marrakech, Morocco, for COP 22, officially known as the 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

President Kagame led the Rwandan delegation to this conference which was viewed as a transition from the lengthy negotiations that characterised COP meetings before the Paris Agreement to future ones focussed on action and implementation of sustainability targets set in Paris. It ran from November 7th to 18th, during which time the President and his team spoke on interventions ranging from climate financing solutions to nationally determined contributions and grassroots action.

At the end, all parties declared that the “ex-

traordinary momentum on climate change worldwide‌is irreversible.� They called for the prioritisation of climate change action at the highest political levels, and support to countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to enable them reduce vulnerability, develop greater resilience and adaptive capacity through poverty eradication and increased food security. The developed countries renewed their commitment to mobilise USD $100 billion by 2020 to support these and other initiatives to combat negative effects of climate change.

The two events on African soil demonstrate that African nations are stepping up to play a greater role in securing a sustainable future, and Rwanda is particularly emerging as a champion in this endeavour.

Min. Biruta plants a tree

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Forestry: Rwanda set to meet Vision 2020 target Rwanda continues to enjoy robust growth, registering an average GDP growth of about 8% per annum since 2001. This has resulted in improved livelihoods for Rwandans, lifting millions out of poverty and assuring better health outcomes for many.

Huye District Southern Province

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owever, in many cases this growth came with an adverse cost to the environment, due in large part to unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, especially forests.

According to Felix Rurangwa, Director of Forest Research and Extension Unit at the Rwanda Water and Forestry Authority (RWFA), the degradation of forests in Rwanda is down to two key factors: the rapidly growing population, and the continued overdependence of Rwandans on natural resources.

“With more than 85% of Rwandans still using charcoal or firewood for fuel, it is really difficult to conserve forests,” he says, “Moreover; there is also competition with other activities like Agriculture.”

Figures from the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative indicate that this degradation of forest landscapes is a continent-wide trend, with nearly 3 million hectares of forests being lost annually in Africa, while 65 percent of the continent’s land is affected by degradation, and 3 percent of its GDP is lost each year from soil and nutrient depletion on cropland.

Rwanda’s forests restoration drive

Rwanda has over the years taken a consistent stance on conservation of the environment, For instance, the country’s guiding Vision 2020 envisages that 30% of the total land area will be covered by forest in 2020.

The country also took on the Bonn Challenge, promising to restore or maintain a total 2 million hectares of degraded forest, representing, proportionally, the highest national commitment to the Bonn Challenge to date.

Rwanda was also one of the first members of AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative), a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes across Africa by 2030.

The country has adopted a multipronged approach to increase the tree cover nationwide, Felix says.

“We have sensitised the public on the value of forests to them; mobilised funds from various partners to plant trees all over the country; introduced PPPs with investors to sustainably manage and add value to forest resources and are promoting greener energy sources such as improved, fuelefficient cook stoves.”

Developing the Agroforestry sector Of the 2.4 million hectares of land in the country, more than

45% (1.1 million hectares) is potentially suitable for Agroforestry, with an anticipated rate of return of 12 to 21% over the original investment.

While stressing the environmental aspect inherent in its forest conservation and restoration drive, Rwanda, through its 2011 National Forest Policy is cognisant of the role of Agroforestry in contributing to the country’s economic growth.

This policy stance has stimulated growth of an increasingly vibrant AgroForestry sector that seeks to balance between economic growth and ecological considerations.

Experts say Rwanda’s agroforestry sector presents a vast range of investment opportunities. According to the “Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunity Assessment for Rwanda”, of the 2.4 million hectares of land in the country, more than 45% (1.1 million hectares) is potential-

ly suitable for Agroforestry, with an anticipated rate of return of 12 to 21% over the original investment.

Felix attests to the fact that many private investors have been drawn to the sector by these attractive prospects.

“For instance, we recently contracted the New Forest Company to manage the band of eucalyptus around Nyungwe Forest. Thus they are now supplying eucalyptus poles within the country and beyond,” he reveals. ”We are also encouraging farmers to take on Agroforestry (where farmers plant trees on part of their own land) so that farmers are able to supply their biomass energy needs without encroaching on existing forests, and the practice is being taken up.”

rently stands at 29.6%,” Felix says, adding that the remaining 0.4% will be covered in the upcoming tree-planting season this November.

Another major achievement is the establishment, little more than a year ago, of the Giswhati-Mukura National Park, a triumph of restoration efforts that spanned close to a decade.

Due to population pressures

and encroachment, the Gishwati and Mukura forests that make up the park had shrunk considerably in size.

The restored park is composed of the Gishwati Forest with an area of 1,439.72 hectares and Mukura Forest with a total surface of 1,987.74 hectares. The park’s buffer zone has a total surface of 992.48 hectares.

Progress so far By leveraging the symbiosis between the private and public sector, Rwanda has been able, in a short time, to hit a number of forestry conservation and restoration milestones.

The country is on schedule to meet its Visin 2020 and EDPRS II target of covering 30% of total land with forest by 2018.

“Total forest cover cur-

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Gishwati-Mukura National Park: Crowning a decade of conservation efforts Created little over a year ago, the Gishwati-Mukura National Park was a long time coming. From a sprawling forest reserve that originally covered an estimated 250,000ha, the Gishwati-Mukura reserve was systematically degraded by unsustainable logging, mining and animal grazing, until it was reduced to 28, 000 ha in 1980s.

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The law stipulates that Gishwati-Mukura National Park comprises Gishwati Forest (area 1,439.72 ha), Mukura Forest (area 1,987.74 ha), and a buffer zone covering a total surface area of 992.48 ha.

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orse yet, the remaining part of the reserve was almost wiped out in the wake of massive resettlement in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as thousands descended upon the forest, clearing it to create farming and pasture land.

Averting an ecological disaster

The rapid degradation of the Gishwati Forest Reserve represented a looming environmental disaster not just because of the adverse effect it would have on the regional eco-system, but because the reserve is home to a number of rare flora and fauna, some species of which are under international alarm for protection. Examples include eastern chimpanzees (listed as Threatened on the IUCN Red List); golden monkeys (listed as Endangered); mountain monkeys (listed as Vulnerable). It is also habitat to over 130 bird species, 14 of which are endemic to the Albertine Rift and two IUCN vulnerable species, as well as about 60 species of trees, including indigenous hardwoods and bamboo.

Starting 2007, efforts were put in place to combat the degradation and oversee restoration of the Gishwati forest reserve. Overtime, it was deemed fit to combine the Gishwati and Mukura reserves to form a single restored habitat from the two forests, with the status of a National Park that would protect it from further encroaching.

Thus, after close to a decade of dedicated work by conservationists and

government agencies, the law establishing the Gishwati-Mukura National Park was signed and gazetted on February 01, 2016, bringing to four the number of parks in Rwanda. The others are Akagera, Nyungwe, and Volcano National Parks.

The law stipulates that Gishwati-Mukura National Park comprises Gishwati Forest (area 1,439.72 ha), Mukura Forest (area 1,987.74 ha), and a buffer zone covering a total surface area of 992.48 ha. The Gishwati-Mukura National Park spans Rubavu, Rutsiro, Ngororero and Nyabihu districts in western Rwanda.

Work is underway to create hiking trails into and across the forest, while a new world-class facility (called Gishwati lodge) in the area, comprising six rustic forest cottages, will afford guests exclusive access to the habituated primate communities of Gishwati Forest.

Benefits to the community It is envisaged that the surrounding population will benefit from new job opportunities being opened up by the park, particularly providing services to tourists, and selling crafts to visitors to the park.

In addition, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority, through its Landscape Approach to Forest Restoration and Conservation (LAFREC) project, is implementing innovative approaches to rehabilitate the degraded landscape within and around the park in a sustainable manner that will conserve the environment while providing economic benefits for residents.

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How Rwanda pulled off the plastic bag ban

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or the first time visitor to Rwanda, the country’s commitment to the environment is one of the first things that strike you on arrival. Regardless of your port of entry, if you miss the clear signposts announcing that polythene bags are forbidden in Rwanda, you will certainly encounter the mandatory checkpoints at which border officials will rifle through luggage to ensure that none of the outlawed packaging material makes it into the country.

The polythene bag (also known as plastic bag) has come to be synony-

A clean city of Kigali

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mous with shopping worldwide, being a cheap, convenient, waterproof material in which purchases can be packaged and carried home. As such, the bags are seemingly omnipresent in most of the world’s capitals, large or small.

Despite its advantages, the seemingly innocuous polythene bag hides a sinister side: it is one of the most notorious domestic pollutants that modernity has produced.

Dangers of plastic According to Eng. Coletha Ruhamya, the Director General, Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA),

“In the area of waste management, we operate on three principles: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. The ban was under the reduction aspect, but we also have industries involved in recycling the plastic waste that had already accumulated.”

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Regarding the role of political will, she says:

A man makes paper packing bags

plastic bags impact negatively on the environment in a number of ways.

“First, plastic bags are non bio-degradable. This means that when it goes into the soil, it does not decay and thus water does not percolate through. Instead when it rains, water flows over the plastic bag, leaving the soil under dry.”

“The effect is even worse when they get into water, because some of the fish and other aquatic animals feed on them and die as a result. This has adverse effects on the ecosystem of the water bodies,” she explains, adding that the sight of discarded polythene bags scattered around is a nuisance and an eyesore.

Rwanda v Plastic Bags In 2008, Rwanda became the first country in the world to impose a total ban on the manufacture, importation, use and sale of polythene bags for packaging purposes.

However, the act was not a onetime event, but rather the culmination of years of intensive preparation.

“We started by doing a study assessing the impact plastic bags would have on our environment if we continued using them as we were. The conclusion was that the impact would be negative.

Immediately we started sensitising the public about the danger of plastic bags,”

the REMA DG recalls.

While sensitisation of the public was ongoing, at policy level various approaches to the limiting environmental damage due to polythene bags (including recycling, partial ban etc) were being considered.

Eng. Ruhamya says the ban on plastic bags is part of a three-pronged approach to combating their menace to the environment.

“In the area of waste management, we operate on three principles: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. The ban was under the reduction aspect, but we also have industries involved in recycling the plastic waste that had already accumulated.”

How did Rwanda do it?

Rwanda’s success in banning the ubiquitous plastic bag is even more remarkable considering that many other countries have attempted the same and failed.

Eng. Ruhamya puts this success down to a number of factors, including: active political will at all levels to see the policy through, widespread sensitisation to change mindsets and ensuring that there are viable alternatives to plastic bags.

“We had support from the very highest level. Can you imagine the impact it has on citizens to see H.E. the President himself picking up and throwing away a plastic bag during Umuganda? This drives the point home that these things are bad. Political will is critical to sensitisation, otherwise all you have are good laws that remain on paper but have no impact.”

She also rubbished the oft-cited argument that a ban on plastic bags would negatively impact on the economy through loss of tax revenues from manufacture and sale of the bags, as well as jobs for people employed by the sector.

“First of all, economic growth is good, but it has to be done sustainably. What is the use of having an industry that provides jobs, but impacts negatively on food production and leads to depletion of your fish and other water resources? In the long run, the net effect on the economy is negative,” she argues.

Moreover, citing the Rwandan experience, she says that the ban of plastic bags actually presents an opportunity to invest in ecofriendly alternatives, which also contribute to the economy.

“Following the ban, a number of industries and businesses related to the manufacture and sale of paper, cloth and other bags have come up,” she says, “and they also pay taxes and create jobs. So we have created jobs through clean investments rather than those that have negative impact on society.”

Ruhamya says that over time, the country is beginning to reap the fruits of this bold move made close to a decade ago.

“We are still experiencing some of the impacts of plastic bags,” she remarks, “but they are no longer as adverse as they used to be.”

Partly motivated by its ban on plastic bags, the United Nations in 2008 awarded Kigali, capital city of Rwanda, its Human Settlement Programs (UN Habitat) Scroll of Honour Awards for its innovative approach to developing a modern, clean and beautiful capital.

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The e-waste plant project includes PC/TV dismantling line,CRT crushing line,plastic crushing line.

New e-Waste plant set for launch

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any of us have struggled with the dilemma of what to do with that old TV set, laptop or mobile phone.

How long will it eat up space in the house? Do you throw it in the trash?

The recently opened e-waste recycling plant in Bugesera promises to provide an answer to this quandary.

The consumption of Electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in Rwanda has shot up over the past few years and continues to rise owing to increased electricity access and government’s prioritisation of computer use in the country with projects such as one laptop per child and countrywide extension of the fibre optic network.

On the downside, it is attended with generation of an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of EEE Waste, commonly known as E-waste. These waste figures are estimated to be increasing at a rate of about 5.95 percent per annum.

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Tackling E-waste

What is E-waste?

E-waste refers to nearly all types of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) waste discarded by users.

It covers both household and business items such as television sets, computers, mobile phones, fridges, electric cookers, microwaves, toasters, washing machines, dryers, and music and home entertainment stereo systems, among others.

Much of the e-waste in Rwanda ends up with informal refurbishers who usually employ rudimentary methods to dismantle or smelt it to recover precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper and tin from disposed components. The rest goes to landfills or is burnt.

Poorly handled or disposed e-waste poses severe health risks to its handlers, the general community and the environment. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), these JUNE result from direct contact with harmful materials such as lead, cadmium, chromium, brominated flame retardants or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), from inhalation of toxic fumes, as well as from leaching and accumulation of chemicals in soil, water and food.

Exposure to these elements JUNE damage or impair development of the central nervous, immune, reproductive and digestive systems especially in children, who are most vulnerable, as well as birds and other wildlife.

The plant will enable safe refurbishment, dismantling and recovery of useful components from e-waste.

It will also provide jobs, thereby boosting the economy.

According to Eng. Coletha U. Ruhamya, the Director General, Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), Rwanda has given serious thought to the anticipated challenge from e-waste.

“Digital devices and operations are on the increase, especially given Rwanda’s outlook on ICT and national policies like the one-laptopper-child policy. We realised we might face a problem in the future because they all have a potential to generate waste, yet we did not have any disposal or treatment mechanism for those wastes,” she says.

To mitigate the negative impacts of e-Waste, the government developed a National e-Waste Management Policy for Rwanda in 2015.

Furthermore, REMA , through the Rwanda Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre, designed an e-waste recycling project as a pilot. The modern e-Waste recycling facility, which cost an estimated 1,127,647,300 Rwf, will enable safe refurbishment, dismantling and recovery of useful components from e-Waste.

“The idea is that if it works we can scale up or bring some private players on board,” the REMA boss says.

While the project originated at REMA, it is domiciled at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and EAC Affairs (MINEACOM) because it is set to help industries to comply with environmental and economic issues.

“It also has a training component, and manufacturers will be taught how to maximise efficiency in resource use, be it water or energy,” Coletha says.

Olivier Mbera, the Programme Manager for Rwanda’s e-Waste project at MINEACOM, says the eagerly anticipated industrial wing of the facility, which opened with its training component in December last year, is now also complete and will provide a considerable number of jobs for Rwandans, thereby boosting the economy.

“The facility will process over 10,000 tonnes of e-Waste annually (mostly televisions, mobile phones, computers etc), and employ about 100 staff to begin with. We expect the number of jobs created to grow to over 1,000 jobs once it is fully operational,” he says.

The facility will handle all the e-waste in the country, and provincial e-waste collection centres are already open to collect waste from neighbouring districts to feed into the facility.

Most funding for the centre was provided

by National Climate Change and Environment Fund (FONERWA) and the rest came from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), MINEACOM and Rwanda Development Board.

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Rwanda Tackles Air Pollution For many in Rwanda, a car is more than just a convenient means of conveyance; it is a status symbol. Therefore, it is perhaps inevitable that as Rwandans enjoy the fruits of the unprecedented economic growth the country has seen over the past two decades, with rising standards of living has come increased motorisation.

Passengers board buses, the service of which was improved with the Smart Kigali initiative.

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nfortunately, the rapidly growing number of vehicles has contributed directly to a significant increase in air pollution levels in the country.

A 2011 study by the Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA) fingered vehicular emissions as the main driver of the rising rates of air pollution. “Air pollution is an emerging challenge for us as a developing country,� REMA Director General Eng. Coletha Ruhamya affirms, adding that a preliminary study had confirmed that there was some air pollution in Kigali city although no comprehensive study had been carried out yet to confirm the exact sources of pollution and what level they are at.

To compound the problem even further, the vast majority of the population still depends on charcoal or wood fuel for its energy needs. Latest statistics indicate that more than 85% of Rwandans depend on biomass as their primary energy source,

while most households use kerosene lamps for lighting in the dark, all of which contribute to the highly perilous indoor air pollution.

Moreover, the industrialisation that is powering the country’s economic boom also contributes to increases in air pollution as many of the industries pump vast quantities of industrial emissions into the air.

Air pollution a killer

The main emissions of concern include Particulate matter, Carbon dioxide and Carbon monoxide, oxides of Nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, and Volatile Organic Compounds. Methane from landfills, livestock and ground leaks is also an issue.

The US Environment Protection Agency warns that exposure to air pollutants JUNE lead to irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat; coughing and breathing difficulties, and aggravation of asthma and other existing lung and heart conditions. Long-term exposure to air pollution can cause cancer and damage to the immune, neurological, reproduc-

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Kigali city introduces walk-to-work days, no cars on streets tive, and respiratory systems. In extreme cases, it can even cause death. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution is linked to about 6.5 million deaths annually. Nearly 90 per cent of these occur in low- and middle-income countries, including Rwanda. Children, the sick, elderly and those with respiratory or heart problems are most at risk.

Methane- another pollutantcan cause fires and explosions and is, together with carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Tackling Air pollution

Government has set out to address these challenges through legislation. First it issued Ministerial Order N°003/16.01 of 15th July 2010 on prevention of activities that pollute the atmosphere and the 2014 Prime Minister’s Instructions preventing air pollution caused by vehicular emissions and machines using petroleum products in Rwanda.

This was followed by the air quality guidelines on Emissions to the air by cement factories (EAS750: 2010), Air quality Specification (EAS 751: 2010) and Tolerance

limits of emission discharged to the air by factories (EAS 752: 2010) which were gazetted in January 2016.

In a bid to enforce the legislation, Eng. Ruhamya states that REMA uses air pollution detection equipment. She also says they have partnered with the Police who look out for the air pollution component when doing motor vehicle inspection. Old motor vehicles also incur more tax.

The government is also actively promoting adoption of natural gas by households to replace charcoal, firewood and other forms of biomass. Natural gas is a much cleaner fuel than biomass.

It is nearly smokeless, and releases significantly lower quantities of harmful gases. In addition, it emits only about half the Carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour than Fuel wood (0.2 against 0.39 kgCO2 / kWh). The switch to gas will therefore limit the health impacts of indoor air pollution and further reduce Rwanda’s contribution to climate change.

Government is also promoting the use of fuel-efficient cooking stoves which were shown to reduce emissions by 48%.

Air Quality Monitoring Centre We are in the process of setting up an Air Quality Monitoring Centre, and already the procurement process for a consultant to assess the air quality situation in the whole country

At the 2016 Climate Change Conference of Parties in Marrakech (COP22), Rwanda joined the clean air coalition, signaling its commitment to step up efforts to address air pollution.

Achieving this goal requires government to collect more detailed data on air pollution to inform comprehensive decision-making and planning of interventions.

“We are in the process of setting up an Air Quality Monitoring Centre, and already the procurement process for a consultant to assess the air quality situation in the whole country and develop a control strategy is already underway,” says Ruhamya.

This exercise, which is already underway, is to be funded by Rwanda Green Fund (FONERWA) under the Rwanda Air Quality and Climate Change Monitoring Project, and will involve installation of climate change and air qualitymonitoring equipment to collect data on air pollution and quality.

Key personnel in governments and universities will then be trained on how to process and utilise the data collected to key pollution sources and focus areas, issue air quality advisories, enforce compliance, formulate or update policies, conduct air pollution and climate change modeling and further research.

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fonerwa:

funding Rwanda’s green agenda For years, government officials and technocrats had observed a growing and frustrating phenomenon: sections of road, painstakingly built over a period of months at huge expense to the tax payer, would be swept away overnight by unprecedented landslides. In the hilly North and West of the country, lives were being lost due to mudslides, while cattle and crops perished in the flat Eastern region.

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n 2009, a study commissioned by Rwanda’s Ministry of Finance and the Rwanda Environment Management Authority painted a reality much grimmer than anyone had imagined: the country was losing over 1% of its GDP to effects of climate change, and would need to spend between US$50 and 300 million per year to adapt.

The problem, though, was that climate change had not been accounted for in the then existing government policies. Indeed Rwanda’s guiding EDPRS I and Vision 2020 (before revision) speak only of the environment and nothing about climate change.

To remedy this, Rwanda developed the Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (GGCRS), a 50-year strategy to guide Rwanda’s growth into a green economy. It was approved by cabinet in 2011.

With the strategy in place, Rwanda needed to find the money to implement it. That is how the idea of a national Green Fund was hatched.

A national Green Fund The Rwanda Environment and Climate Change Fund, FONERWA, was established by law in 2012 as a basket fund with a mandate to facilitate access to international climate finance, coordinate climate finance within the

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FONERWA statistics

89,694 Green jobs Created

21,847 Hectares of land Reforested

17,449

Families Connected to off-grid clean energy

12,998 Hectares of watersheds and water bodies Restored

723

Stakeholders Trained in proposal development

1290

Concept notes Submitted for funding

33

Projects Approved Over 75M USD Capitalisation

country, and be the financing vehicle for the Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (GGCRS).

According to FONERWA Program Manager, Bright Ntare, the fund officially opened doors in 2013, with US$3.5 million from the Government of Rwanda, and the UK’s Department of international Development (DFID) funding of about 22.5 million GBP and 6.7 Euros from the German-government’s development bank KfW. “The way the fund is structured is that we have a number of donors contribute, and then we appropriate it to the different sectors depending on national priorities,” Bright explains.

FONERWA’s capitalisation by mid-2017 was US$76 million and expected to grow to between US$250 and 300 million in the next years.

Industry and East African Affairs (MINEACOM) to develop an e-waste strategy and set up an e-waste dismantling and recycling facility; funded Zero carbon technologies (Strawtec), a producer of low carbon building to set up three demonstration model houses at their factory premises; and supported a marshland development project by an NGO in Rusuli, Huye district that is enabling over 3,000 rice farmers and cooperatives to develop the marshland in environmentally friendly ways.”

Accessing the fund FONERWA funds a wide array of projects related to green growth and climate change in the Public sector (Central and Local Government), Civil Society Organisations, Higher Learning Institutions and the Private Sector, Bright reveals.

“The only condition is that they have to fall within the following four intervention windows: Conservation & rehabilitation of natural resources; Energy, R&D and technology transfer; Environment & climate change mainstreaming, and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA).”

FONERWA issues two calls for application for funding each year, in January and July. To date, nine calls have been issued.

The proposed projects’ viability is assessed at three different levels namely; by the Fund Management Team, which ensures that it falls within FONERWA’s four intervention windows; the Fund Technical Committee, which guarantees that it is viable from a technical standpoint; and finally, the Fund Managing Committee which assesses its relevance from a policy and national strategy perspective.

The fund provides 100% grants to the Public sector, CSOs and Higher Learning Institutions.

For the private sector, two facilities exist, namely; an Innovation Grant Facility and a Credit Line Facility.

The innovation Grant, which cannot be less than US$50,000 and has a cap of US$300,000 caters for such undertakings as R&D, proof of concept, and demonstration.

“For this, FONERWA puts up 75% of the cost, while the initiator has to raise the remaining 25%,” Bright explains.

The Green Fund also partnered with the Rwanda development Bank (BRD) to offer a Credit line facility to private sector investments with a green component at a reduced interest rate of 11.4% instead of the bank’s ordinary 16% rate.

Currently, FONERWA’s Program Manager says, the focus is on mainstreaming of green considerations in both the public and private sector endeavors.

A total 33 projects have been approved, while 31 are already at implementation phase.

Some stand-out projects Since inception, FONERWA has funded a number of high-impact green projects in Rwanda, Bright says, citing a few. “We supported the Ministry of Trade,

Way forward After more than four year’s existence, Rwanda’s Green Fund is streamlining operations to increase its capacity to meet the country’s growth needs.

First, it has adjusted its operational strategy from being a purely demand-led fund to a hybrid fund that is part demand-led (45%) and part programmatic (55%).

“We realised that in our former approach some sectors critical to national development goals were being left out, so we have added a programmatic aspect, where we help fund priority government undertakings related to the environment or climate change.”

FONERWA has also introduced reforms aimed at easing private sector access to the fund, after noticing that only about 15% of projects currently being financed by the fund are from the private sector.

The private sector had complained that the lengthy and bureaucratic fund application and access process was tailored to public sector, citing the 6-months gap between calls as unfeasible.

“We have since restructured to accept proposals from the private sector on a rolling basis, and have adjusted our application templates to a language that is more easily accessible them,” Bright says, adding that Rwanda cannot successfully create a green economy without the active involvement of the private sector.

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Green Villages Project They have schools, health centres, ICT-infrastructure, agroforestry The IDP model also advocates for greening, the image shows palm trees planted in one of the gardens in Rweru IDP model village.

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A

ll over Rwanda, a quiet revolution is underfoot in the housing sector. Dubbed the Integrated Development Programme (IDP) Model villages, it is a countrybased orientation vision, where houses that are equipped with green technologies are constructed close together to form Umudugudu (village). Each IDP Model Village is fully equipped with ICT infrastructure, a school, health centre, cowshed, water harvesting system and a biogas system.

The IDP Model Villages project is a government programme championed by the Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA) under the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) and the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC), while the green aspect is taken care of by the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA).

The IDP Model Villages is the adaptation of the “Green Villages” project that was initially championed by REMA, with the support of

various development partners, to pilot an environmentally sustainable mode of living that could then be replicated all over the country.

In an interview with the Independent, REMA Director General, Eng. Coletha Ruhamya explained that Green villages started as a concept to relocate people living in high-risk zones where they could compromise the environment, to organised settlements in areas characterised by green living.

“We mostly dealt with people living close to wetlands, lakes, rivers, on islands or in very steep areas that were at risk of landslides,” she says.

The very first Green Villages were implemented in 2012 by REMA and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in Rubaya and Muyebe sectors of Rwanda.

“The idea is to have settlements that are very close, with semidetached structures comprising two or four housing units for two or four families respectively.”

Special Report Rwanda

IDP Model Village houses constructed by REMA

17 32 Groupe Scolaire de Nkanga playground in Rweru that was constructed under IDP model villages to promote sports and community gathering in Batima

Greening Component According to Alphonsine Ntabana, the Single Project Implementation Unit (SPIU) coordinator at REMA, each house is equipped with green technologies such as water harvesting tanks fitted with a filtration system, biogas, and eco-friendly toilets.

“In addition, each family receives two cows to feed into the biogas system, as well as fuel-efficient cooking stoves.

The toilets are also connected to the biogas system that converts the waste into gas for lighting or cooking, while the cow dung is used as manure to improve the fertility and productivity of the household.”

The Green Villages also have schools, health centres, ICTinfrastructure, as well as an agroforestry component.

Ruhamya says that the Green Villages project, apart from

being an effective and efficient use of Rwanda’s scarce land resource, combines a number of elements that are part of the country’s overall development strategy such as the onecow-per-poor family (Girinka), and the Rainwater Harvesting Scheme among others.

Green villages have so far been constructed in 4 districts namely; 34 houses in Rusizi district, 64 houses in Eastern province; 76 houses in Burera district and 66 houses in Musanze. Each house has a living room, 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and toilet.

After relocation to the new settlements, Alphonsine says, the residents of the Green Villages are then organised into cooperatives where they are taught about sanitation and social cohesion.

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two-in-one houses were constructed to relocate 34 households living within 10 meters of Cyagara and Rungunga riverbanks;

two-in-one houses were constructed in Bugesera District to relocate 64 Households living in high risk zone of Mazane and Sharita islands,

two-in-one houses were constructed in Burera District to relocate 76 Households living in high risk zone of Burera Lake islands, four-in-one houses were constructed to relocate 16 households living in flood prone high risk zone of Ruhondo lake islands.

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Improved welfare

Undergound water harvesting tanks constructed for Muyebe Village residents

Scaling up

“This project has led to an improvement in the welfare of the communities,” she says.

“Now they understand the impact of environmental protection; deforestation has been reduced because they use biogas, and fuel-efficient cooking stoves; they have reliable water all year round from the water harvesting systems.”

Furthermore, under this arrangement children and women are the big winners. The former do not have to miss school because of moving long distances to fetch water or collect firewood, xx

while women are freed up to engage in other gainful pursuits.

However, REMA’s role does not end here.

“We have to go back and restore the degraded, high-risk landscapes where these people lived before, because everything we do is inspired by the spirit of rehabilitation,” Alphonsine explains.

At the same time, REMA has developed a “Green Toolkit” with clear steps and best practices that can be adopted by anyone interested in setting up a green village.

The Independent | JUNE 2017

The IDP Model Villages project spearheaded by RHA takes the best of the Green Villages model and expands it to national level.

According to Charles Sindayigaya SERPG&VERP Project Coordinator at REMA, the plan is to construct at least two model villages in each of Rwanda’s 30 districts every year, bringing the total to 60 per year. The first IDP Model Village was launched on July 4, 2016, and the project will run for 7 years.

Meanwhile, REMA is mandated to cater for the green component in all the IDP villages that will be constructed, that is; water harvesting tanks, biogas construction, cooking stove distribution, beautification, tree planting, fruit and agroforestry, forestry etc.

While REMA primarily focused on people living in high-risk areas and those from vulnerable groups (the very poor, widows etc), government has added

other intervention priorities. For instance, the IDP Model Villages project is now going to start with the Northern Corridor due to the high degradation of land there.

A national Steering Committee has since been set up to oversee implementation of the IDP Model villages project.

A recent Cost-Benefit analysis of the Rubaya green village demonstration project found that, if a 6% discount rate is considered for the project over a 20 and 30-year periods, the project efficiency is high, leading to benefits surpassing the costs by 15% to 35%. The rate of return also appears to be high (20% and 47%), way higher than any return rate one could obtain through private banking.

The report concludes, “All these results prove the project efficiency is high if a sustainable, social and long-term perspective is adopted.”