Scoping mission on water in rwanda - Partners voor Water

More documents

Recommendations

Info

<strong>Scoping</strong> Mission on Rwanda for Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kigali 1 Rwanda • Through the AgentschapNL of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (EL&I) and the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP), the EKN has requested a Water <strong>Scoping</strong> Mission to deliver inputs for the Multi-Annual Strategic Plan (MASP). The Terms of Reference for the team members of the <strong>mission</strong> are presented in Annex 1. The composition of the team was: Kees van ‘t Klooster Jo Smet Liliane Kente IWRM/ agricultural water management Water supply and sanitation/IWRM Local consultant • The team visited Rwanda from 9 until 16 August 2011 (Annex 2 for itinerary). The team worked closely with Mr. Jolke Oppewal and Mr. Gaspard Ndagijimana of the EKN, and their support was highly appreciated. The team had discussions with various water sector and non-sector persons (Annex 3 for list of people met). • Rwanda is found one of the success stories emerging from Africa in recent years. Long-term vision, strong leadership, political stability, good governance and economic growth have made it attractive to foreign investors and ecotourism has taken off. Agricultural production has doubled since 2007, improving food security, mining has been privatised and contributes 38% of export earnings, and industry and services are expanding, providing off-farm jobs for the growing population. Development is supported by 2,300km of fibre optic cables recently laid across the country and by an increasing access to electricity, now at 10.5%. Over 95% of children enrolled in primary school in 2009. Six years after joining the East Africa Community, Rwanda is playing a leading and exemplary role in the region. • Rwanda has an ambitious Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) (2008-2012) that is steered by three ‘flagships’: (i) sustainable growth for jobs and exports; (ii) Vision 2020 with many propoor components in national growth agenda, and (iii) governance (e.g. low incidence of corruption) as the anchor for pro-poor growth. Vision 2020 aims to transform Rwanda from a subsistence agriculture economy to a knowledge-based society earning 900 USD per capita, making Rwanda a middle-income country by 2020. • The EDPRSP targets are given in Annex 4. Setting ambitious targets is one, Rwanda seems to succeed in achieving many. That makes Rwanda unique among African countries South of the Sahara. The majority of Government staff was said to be below 40 years with a high motivation and drive towards success in change and innovation in governance. • Rwanda is making serious efforts to changing from a purely agriculture-driven economy (in 2000: 90% of population was employed in agriculture) to a multiple-sector economy with more agro-processing, industrial development and service sector. Actually, Rwanda has no choice. It has the highest population density in Africa (408 persons/km 2 ). It is transiting a substantial portion of its land presently utilised for small-scale household-based farming into large-scale, modernised, mechanised farming. Rwanda is gradually increasing its present 17,000 ha of irrigated land to the 6-fold target of 100,000ha in 2017. It needs to feed its growing population, some 11 million in 2011, and annually increasing with some 2.8%. Page 3
<strong>Scoping</strong> Mission on Rwanda for Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kigali 2 Present situation in water sector 2.1 Water sector in Rwanda 2.1.1 IWRM • The importance of IWRM for Rwanda has been under-valued. Water development has been approached from a pragmatic, service-oriented more than from a sustainable development and utilisation of a finite resource perspective. Main water users such as agriculture, energy from hydro-power and water supply work nearly independently in their own domains without significant coordination with other sectors in using the same source. Each of these big water users has not taken the concerns of the other users seriously into account. Now as Rwanda has high targets to increase food production, to generate more energy and increase water consumption, these water-related sectors understand that they have to collaborate. The impression is that they major their own sectors over the others and do not fully appreciate the opportunities and risks for the source from their own and the other sectors’ side. The Rwandan Natural Resources Authority (2010) has now a directorate on water resources management that is taken up this coordination role of WRM and make that integrated in the development agenda of Rwanda, thereby supported by a very recent Policy and Strategic Plan, yet to be approved by the Cabinet. These two documents support the seriousness of the Government to address the fragility of water as a resource in a sustainable social and economic development, being reflected in the Vision 2020 and the EDPRSP 2008-12. Three key characteristics of WRM stand out: the wide spectrum of users, the water quality and water quantity. • IWRM from the perspective of the various main water user categories: (i) Households use small amounts of water and demand safe water for drinking and domestic purposes. They may also contaminate and pollute surface and groundwater through improper human waste handling. Rwanda’s population is relative large and growing at a relatively high rate of some 2.8 % per year. The future domestic requirements in water volume also resulting from an increasing consumption and in quality set criteria for raw water sources also in view of the limited feasible technological and financial conditions of the communities. (ii) Agriculture uses water from various sources: rain, lakes, rivers and ground. Marshland will increasingly be used for irrigation, which may – if not done in a balanced way – damage the ecological functions these wetlands have and cause serious problems including floods and drying-up of lakes, as experienced already 1 . The recognised need to steeply increase the irrigated land portion will demand for innovative technological water provision solutions if not to threaten the water demands by other users. Water use efficiency is very low, both in traditional agricultural and irrigation systems. Intensive agriculture has the potential risk to cause serious water pollution from intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides. Pastoralism is banned in Rwanda and livestock is only at the farms but still promoted. Fisheries development depends on lakes and rivers and is not viewed as a major economic development pillar. (iii) Electricity access is limited now but by 2020 some 35% of population will be connected (according to Vision 2020). Hydropower will be a major contributor to the power demand and impact on the water availability situation in the water basins. Planned large-scale methane gas exploration from lakes may have adverse effects on the lakes’ water quality. (iv) Industry both requires water and produces industrial effluents, which, if not treated adequately, may seriously pollute receiving surface water making these unfit for other uses and impacting on the ecology. Coffee is a growing industry; coffee processing is a serious water consumer and polluting activity that – at this moment - hardly includes wastewater treatment. The national investment policy is to attract industries and develop a service sector to support the economic development, also as by 2020 agriculture may only employ some 50% (2008: 90%) of the population. 1 some lakes have also been restored such as Lake Cyohoha, Rugezi wetland supplying lakes Burera and Ruhondo Page 4
Page 1 and 2: SCOPING MISSION ON WATER IN RWANDA
Page 3 and 4: Scoping Mission on
Page 7: Scoping Mission on
Page 57: Scoping Mission on

Scoping mission on water in rwanda - Partners voor Water

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?