ALTAVERDE CONSULTING Project LEAD in Rwanda
Photo Credit: Rwanda Green Fund
AltaVerde Consulting acted as the team leader of a project in Rwanda through October 2018, in collaboration with the Belgian Development Agency (now known as ENABEL), lead Rwandan land use government agencies, local communities, and the large international conservation NGO IUCN.
In April of 2017, Ken Andrasko of AltaVerde presented at and co-led a stakeholder kick-off workshop in Kigali to explore potential concepts for this work, funded by BTC/ENABEL. The workshop defined a preliminary goal for the target provinces. Key concerns that emerged include how one or more provinces could increase their capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change impacts on croplands, watersheds, and forestlands, how to improve land use management and bioenergy supply systems to provide GHG mitigation benefits, and where to find adequate financing for implementation.
This second body of work focused on improved watershed management, increased capacity and resilience to climate change impacts, reduced GHG emissions from cookstoves, lessened demand for wood fuels, and implementation of climate-resilient forests and crop land systems, among other potential outcomes.
Activities conducted throughout the project included holding consultations with farmers about their current farming practices and costs to determine what alternative practices could be introduced, planning workshops to select pilot demonstration sites, and addressing social safeguard issues.
Ken conducted fieldwork in Kigali and several provinces of Rwanda during part of the spring and summer of 2018, to define the most effective, most compelling, and most transformational activities that could be implemented in a large new project. See his blog post about his experience in Rwanda.