ActionAid’s Food Security and Economic Empowerment Programme in Muko Sector, Northern Rwanda: Guidelines for Achieving the Double Boon

Abstract

Despite an impressive socioeconomic transformation over the past few decades, Rwanda ranks as one of the least developed countries in the world. Today, over 75 per cent of the population remain dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, of which women constitute a disproportionate majority. ActionAid Rwanda’s (AAR) Improving Food Security and Economic Opportunities for Women project in Muko sector, Musanze District in the Northern Province aims to combat these intersecting deprivations. AAR’s project aims 'to enable 1,200 of the most vulnerable women smallholder farmers and 300 vulnerable male smallholder farmers to improve their food security and economic security through increased agricultural profitability'. This note examines how the AAR programme has contributed to heightened economic empowerment amongst female beneficiaries and the extent to which it may have promoted a ‘double boon’; that is, paid work that empowers women and provides more support for their unpaid care work responsibilities, rather than a double burden of additional hard work without taking into account women’s heavy care responsibilities.