Rwanda Poverty Graduation and Climate Resilience Outcomes Project

Intervention

Social or environmental challenge

In Rwanda over 6 million people are living in extreme poverty and climate change deepens inequalities as more frequent storms, flooding, drought, and changes in rainfall patterns are impacting the poorest communities the most, making it even more difficult to secure decent livelihoods. The government of Rwanda has adopted a Graduation Policy to eliminate poverty by 2030, but in the context of global funding constraints and varying returns to graduation programming across countries, there is more we must learn about how to most cost effectively graduate households to resilience in the Rwandan context. This outcomes project will incorporate a rigorous, rapid-cycle learning agenda from the onset of the project, and by tying payment to results will provide the flexibility and incentive to iterate, learn, and scale successfully.

Description of the intervention

Village Enterprise’s approach to economic inclusion centers around or cost-effective, one-year ‘Poverty Graduation’ model. We use rigorous targeting to identify rural households living in extreme poverty, provide training around savings, loans, and microenterprise development, establish ‘Business Savings Groups’ of thirty individuals, provide seed capital grants to start group businesses, and support through mentoring.

Target population

Rural extreme poor households earning less than $1.90/day

Outcome metrics

• Effective targeting of people living in extreme poverty; Increased entry into and sustenance in quality (self)-employment ; Increased climate adaptive behaviors and outcomes (ex., reliable drinking water supply for target group during dry spells); Increased financial stability and quality of life for families

Last data update

Data for this pipeline project was last updated in April 2022.