It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a week since I was traveling through Rwanda with the five ONE Campus Challenge student leaders. After weeks of policy prep work ahead of the trip, it was great to see our site visits come together in a meaningful way to showcase so many of the critical priorities ONE supports across the continent: improved health, agriculture, education, and economic growth, among others—and how they all link together.
On our last night in Rwanda, we went around the dinner table and asked each of the students to say what was the most surprising thing they had seen or learned. For me, having been to Rwanda and a few other African countries before, it was really interesting to take in the trip and the country through their eyes as students and as first-time visitors to Africa, and the diversity of their answers was fascinating. Many were amazed by how much the university students in Rwanda were just like them, with the same hopes and dreams (and also the same desire to relax with their friends, watch World Cup matches, and listen to Lady Gaga) but also by how much harder many of them—particularly the girls and those orphaned by the genocide—had to work to make it to where they were. Others were surprised to learn just how much work went into their morning cups of coffee, how far the country had come since genocide only 16 years ago, and how important sustained investments into mechanisms like the Global Fund are for the lives of so many Rwandans.
Ultimately, we learned that we have so much more to learn; after all, a week is certainly not enough time to understand an entire sector or an entire country. But we hope the time in Rwanda was more than just a fun trip for the OCCers. As they travel back to their campuses this fall, I hope they will carry forward what they saw, and become even more passionate advocates for ONE’s work and for Africa. I’m excited to see what creative things they come up with in the months and years to come!
Roger Thurow has a report from Kirehe, Rwanda looking at what policies are needed to increase agriculture production and farmers’ incomes in the country. Definitely worth a read. In the piece, he looks at the Obama Administration’s “Feed the Future” initiative and its effect on Rwanda:
In this effort to keep moving forward, [Rwanda minister of agriculture Agnes Kalibata] welcomes a crucial ally: the Feed the Future initiative of the Obama administration to end hunger through agriculture development. Rwanda has become the model country because of its own efforts to make agriculture, which accounts for about one-third of the gross domestic product, the engine of poverty reduction.
In 2007, after years of food deficits, Agnes recalls, President Kagame convened a meeting and said, “Enough. I don’t ever want to see a single Rwandan starving again. What can we do? Let’s go on the agriculture sector.”
Since then, Rwanda’s spending on agriculture development has increased to about 7% of its budget from less than 3%, according to the minister. The goal is 10%. The government has pushed to make fertilizer and better quality seeds available to the farmers, who have enthusiastically reaped bigger harvests. In 2007, Agnes reports, two-thirds of the country’s districts were below daily food requirements; today, there are none. Having met domestic needs, the government now hopes the farmers will continue to grow so that Rwanda can be an exporter to regional markets. Just this week, five east African countries, including Rwanda, created a common market to facilitate trade and the movement of people and capital.
The Future Looks Bright farmers’ cooperative in Kirehe is eager to do its part. Several years ago, many of its 1,500 members would cross the nearby border into Tanzania to search for food. This year, they harvested a 4,000 ton maize surplus and are now hungry for markets.
Upon hearing that Feed the Future would be investing in post-harvest infrastructure – post-harvest losses in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa can run as high as 30% to 50% of production — the cooperative filed a request for storage warehouses, shelling equipment, drying facilities. All with the goal of getting the maize ready, and more attractive, for the markets.
As you’ll recall, 5 ONE Campus Challenge students recently earned the opportunity to join ONE on a listening and learning tour in Rwanda. Well, they’ve landed safely and are already well underway meeting with Rwandans of all walks of life and learning more about the country and the region.
The students and ONE staff will be checking in frequently with updates about what they’re seeing and hearing on the ground. You can follow along here: www.one.org/us/occafricatrip/.
ONE’s US Field Director is also “live Tweeting” the trip, posting pictures and fielding questions. You can follow along with him at twitter.com/mike_at_one.
Four African countries on Friday signed a new treaty on the equitable sharing of the Nile waters despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan who have the lion’s share of the river waters.
Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania signed the new framework while Kenya issued a support statement, an AFP correspondent reported.
Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo were not represented at the meeting in the Ugandan town of Entebbe.
“This agreement benefits all of us and harms none of us,” Ethiopia’s Water Resources Minister Asfaw Dingamo said. “I strongly believe all Nile Basin countries will sign the agreement.”
The upstream countries want to be able to implement irrigation and hydropower projects in consultation with Egypt and Sudan, but without Egypt being able to exercise the veto power it was given by a 1929 colonial-era treaty with Britain.
“We regret the intentional and announced absence of our dear brothers from Egypt and Sudan,” said Stanislas Kamanzi, Rwanda’s water and lands minister.
The new agreement, the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework, is to replace a 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan that gives them control of more than 90 percent of the water flow.
This summer, five of the nation’s top college-level advocates for solutions to global poverty will travel with the ONE Campus Challenge to Rwanda for a week of on-the-ground listening and learning, June 27 through July 2. This experience will make them even better advocates, as they’ll be able to speak first-hand about what works and what doesn’t in disease prevention and treatment, sustainable agriculture development, maternal and child health promotion, and more.
The five students are:
Mike Fazzino
Mike is a recent graduate of Sacred Heart University in CT where he studied Business and Political Science. Mike has been SHU’s Campus Leader since OCC’s launch in 2007, but he recently stepped down to train next year’s leader. Mike hopes to eventually pursue a Master’s in Public Policy.
Meredith Horowski
Meredith is taking over duties as Campus Leader at the University of Michigan next year. She is seeking to not only bring more attention to ONE’s issues on her campus, but also wants to include the larger Ann Arbor community. Meredith sees a career in non-profit work in her future but for now is focusing on her work at UofM’s Ford School of Public Policy.
Sarah Hunter
Sarah is next year’s Campus Leader at Boston University. She’s a rising senior and hopes to continue her work with international development after graduation. Sarah is considering the Peace Corps or non-profit work post-grad, but for now she is focusing her efforts on spreading advocacy and awareness on the BU campus.
Kritter Keirnan
Yes, her name is “Kritter”, and she’s a rising Junior at Webster University in St. Louis, studying Print Journalism. She was instrumental in getting Sen. Kit Bond to appear on Webster’s campus this April and because of Webster’s relationship with Sen. Bond, Kritter has particular interest in global agriculture.
Charlie Kraiger
Charlie is the current Campus Leader at Michigan State University and has worked incredibly hard to pull his campus from #35 to #2 in this year’s Challenge. Like MSU in their final project, Charlie plans to more closely examine educational systems in Rwanda. He will also be interning with Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow’s office this summer.
These five will be traveling all over Rwanda and blogging about their adventures here on the ONE Blog. Stay tuned!
Speaking of Roger Thurow, take a minute to read his newest blog post at Global Food for Thought. In it, he stresses the need for African countries to work together to tackle continent-wide hunger.
He cites Rwanda as an example:
Rwanda, for instance, is landlocked, and depends on its neighboring countries for ports and transport to the sea to market any surplus agriculture production. And it is a small country, unable to deploy economies of scale in purchasing supplies such as fertilizer and seed. President Kagame and Agriculture Minister Agnes Kalibata have stressed that Rwanda’s success in improving agriculture production will be limited with regional success.
Rwanda agriculture will only flourish if regional markets flourish, and regional transportation, regional communication, regional infrastructure.
The goal of the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, also called Feeding the Future, is to create the conditions for Africa’s farmers to grow enough food to feed their families and also have surpluses to sell on the markets. If there aren’t sufficient markets to absorb the surpluses, prices of the commodities fall and farmers lose incentive to grow as much as they can. It has happened over and over again in Africa and has kept African agriculture from advancing.
Thus, Boaz notes, “surplus production is a regional aspect. You produce a surplus in your country, you need a region to sell it in.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in Rwanda today after meeting with President Paul Kagame. This is the first time a French president has visited the country in 25 years.
The trip is also the first by a French leader since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. It aims to cement diplomatic ties that were restored in November, three years after they broke down because of the arrest warrants that accused those close to Kagame of a role in the presidential assassination that sparked the genocide.
Sarkozy was met at Kigali’s airport by Rwanda’s prime minister and then visited the main genocide museum in the tiny, mountainous central African country. Afterward Kagame welcomed Sarkozy at his official residence.
France and Rwanda have sparred for years over an alleged French role in the genocide, in which 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were massacred in frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
This summer, five of the nation’s top college-level advocates for solutions to global poverty will travel with the 
