RWANDAN AGRICULTURE INVESTMENT PLAN BASED ON CAADP

UNCLAS KIGALI 000781 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EAID EAGR SENV RW SUBJECT: RWANDAN AGRICULTURE INVESTMENT PLAN BASED ON CAADP PILLARS REF: KIGALI 747 ¶1. (U) Summary: Rwanda's second overall Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (PSTA II) is the basis for the Government of Rwanda's (GOR) draft Agriculture Investment Plan (see reftel). This draft investment plan addresses each of the four Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) pillars. Without adequate investment in agriculture, the GOR will struggle to maintain or exceed the targeted agriculture growth rate of six percent per year. End Summary. ¶2. (U) PSTA II (like its predecessor, which ran from 2004-2008) is a component of the GOR's EDPRS (Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy). The PSTA II outlines the GOR's national agriculture strategies, details programs to achieve these strategies, and estimates implementation costs. The cost of the PSTA II is the basis for the GOR's Agriculture Investment Plan. This plan will guide the proposed December 7-8 high-level meeting hosted by the GOR. ¶3. (U) The GOR's CAADP Compact, signed in March 2007, aligned the PSTA II strategy with CAADP commitments: six percent annual growth in agriculture and ten percent of national spending allocated to the agriculture sector. The PSTA II's four programs are loosely aligned with the four CAADP pillars. Each program in the PSTA II addresses one or more of the CAADP pillars. ¶4. (U) The draft GOR Agriculture Investment Plan estimates that PSTA II implementation will cost $848 million. The draft Investment Plan projects GOR contribution will be $117 million, development partners' contribution will be $263 million, and private sector contribution will be $25 million, leaving an investment gap of $441 million. An On The Frontier (OTF) report commissioned by USAID to evaluate PSTA II-CAADP alignment concluded that although Rwanda's agricultural growth exceeded CAADP's goal of six percent agricultural growth, the GOR has not allocated the resources required under the Maputo Declaration, thus falling short of a second high-level CAADP goal to invest ten percent of the national budget in agriculture. The OTF report concludes that without adequate investment in agriculture, the GOR will struggle to maintain CAADP's targeted growth rate of six percent. ¶5. (SBU) Comment: In the draft Agriculture Investment Plan, the GOR asserts that even though CAADP's agricultural growth goal is six percent, Rwanda will need to exceed that and sustain a growth rate of eight percent in order to achieve Millennium Development Goal 1--to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Although CAADP's second high level goal targets allocating ten percent of national expenditure to agriculture, post does not expect the GOR to achieve this based on current GOR Ministry of Finance projections. USAID and other development partners will continue to encourage the GOR to allocate more of its scarce resources to agriculture. End Comment. SYMINGTON