Rwanda gender srategy: Building Equitable Climate Resilient African Bean and Insect Sectors (BRAINS) Project

The Building Equitable Climate-Resilient African Bean and Insect Sectors (BRAINS) project is a multi-country program, driving sustainable agri-food systems change across 15 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, including Rwanda. The project aims at transforming the common bean, fruit tree, and beneficial insect farming sectors by promoting low-carbon, climate-resilient agricultural systems and economies. Specifically, the BRAINS project is committed to enhancing climate-resilient agricultural systems, promoting the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies, and building a pipeline of enterprises actively investing in carbon-neutral, climate-resilient, and gender-responsive business development in line with emerging goals of the climate finance sector. The project also aims to ensure that vulnerable and marginalised groups, particularly women and youth farmers, are equitably involved and benefit from this transformation.
In Rwanda, agriculture remains the backbone of the economy and the primary source of livelihoods for most rural households (Izza & Anisa, 2024). The sector is dominated by smallholder farmers who heavily rely on rain-fed agriculture, making them highly exposed to climatic unpredictability and market shocks (World Bank, 2021). Climate risks have differentiated gender impacts, and women often have fewer assets and limited adaptive capacity to respond to shocks such as droughts, floods, and pest outbreaks. These constraints reduce women’ ability to recover from climate-related losses and reinforce existing inequalities (Ampaire et al., 2020). Climate change is expected to worsen existing production constraints through rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and increased pest and disease pressures, endangering household food security and rural incomes (IPCC, 2022). These climate-related hazards intersect with structural disparities in access to land, finance, inputs, extension services, and markets, creating varied vulnerabilities across socioeconomic groups (Rwabukambiza, 2022).
Gender gaps remain a fundamental structural limitation in Rwanda’s agricultural sector (Ingabire et al., 2018). Although women make up a large share of the agricultural labour force, they continue to face barriers to access to productive resources, extension services, financial services, especially loans, and decision-making processes (FAO, 2023; UN Women, 2022). These barriers hinder women’s ability to adopt climate-smart practices, engage in higher-value market sectors, and profit equitably from agricultural breakthroughs. Youth also face structural constraints, including limited asset ownership, restricted access to capital, and inadequate entrepreneurial prospects, which hamper their meaningful engagement in climate-resilient agricultural operations (IFAD, 2021).