Rwanda’s embrace of the green economy
Although Rwanda is a tiny landlocked nation in the heart of Eastern Africa, all indications reveal that it is a nation with a bullish ambition to integrate green growth and climate-resilient strategies into its national fabric. Rwanda has taken a proactive approach to streamline environmental concerns and climate change into its policies, programmes, and plans. It is hoped that these initiatives will transform Rwanda into a developed, climate-resilient, and low-carbon economy by 2050. In the meantime, some of the results have already started to show.
First, the nation has institutionalized ‘Umuganda’; a community cleaning exercise where all able citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 years engage in cleaning up its cities and villages on the last Saturday of every month. This simple community exercise has entrenched the ideals of environmental conservation and proper waste management so much that waste is now an uncommon site (Rwanda Governance Board 2017). It also banned non-biodegradable single-use plastics and packaging materials. This reduced plastic waste in the nation so much so that it has earned Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, the reputation of being one of the foremost sustainable cities in Africa. This feat was confirmed when UN Habitat honoured it in 2008 (Bafana 2016).
Recently, the Rwandan government’s decision to eliminate e-waste saw it establish, through a public-private partnership (PPP), a multi- million e-waste recycling facility for obsolete electronic equipment. This programme is expected to save the country from environmental hazards and create thousands of green jobs.
Furthermore, Rwanda has already reached its target of increasing its forest coverage to 30 per cent by 2020, with two years to spare. This is no small feat, considering that the nation has one of the highest population density rates in Africa. Despite the large population pressure on its small land surface, more trees are planted and protected in Rwanda every year, than are cut down (The East African 2019).
To finance some of its green growth strategic plans and projects, the country has set up a Green Fund that is meant to support the best public and private projects that support its commitment to transitioning to a green economy (Rwanda Green Fund 2019). It has also consistently met the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) targets of investing at least 10 per cent of its annual budget to the agricultural sector (Alliance for A Green Revolution in Africa [AGRA] 2018).
All these factors combined with structural reforms in government have contributed to Rwanda’s economic rise to become the third fastest growing economy in the world in 2018 (International Monetary Fund 2019). Over the past decade, a whopping 2 million people have been lifted out of poverty (United Kingdom, Department for International Development 2018). Indeed, Rwanda proves that nations can achieve decent jobs through environmentally-sound policies. It is therefore safe to say that there is a strong correlation between a thriving green economy, reducing unemployment and decent jobs.
Sub-saharan Africa is starved for electricity; the power sector is hugely underdeveloped, whether it is energy access, installed capacity, or overall consumption (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] and World Health Organization [WHO] 2009). The residential and industrial sectors suffer electricity shortages, which makes economies within this region struggle to sustain economic growth. Indeed, fulfilling the economic and social promise of the region largely depends on the ability of governments and investors to develop the continent’s huge electricity capacity.
Simply put, Africa cannot develop in the dark. Lacking power, African agro-industries are weighed down by high costs that render them
uncompetitive (AGRA 2017). Governments must create an enabling environment for young scientists and entrepreneurs to commercialize innovative solutions. Solar energy start-ups need tax incentives for a number of years to expand and sustain their operations. The challenge now lies in how to maximize the value of energy resources in Africa, and to identify the best policies and reforms needed for affordable electricity and for unleashing Africa’s economic potential. In fact, the renewable energy sector itself employed approximately 10.3 million people around the world, directly and indirectly, in 2017 (REN21 2018), and Africa can stand to benefit from this kind of job creation. Although nearly one billion people in sub-Saharan Africa are projected to gain
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Youth-led Green Solutions
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