Implementation period: ACORD Rwanda 2009-2011

Funded by :BLF Reference number: ICB/1/01309702

With support from BLF, ACORD Rwanda embarked on a project to champion women's rights to land and food security in post-conflict Rwanda. Indeed, in Rwanda, it is estimated that over 500,000 women-headed households live on subsistence farming. Arable land is becoming scarcer and its management is uncertain, especially since the land belongs to state.

This project has opted to work with groups of women (amahuriro y'abagore) as a sustainable approach to reach woman-headed households and use the collective work as a medium that can speed up women’s responsibility in land registration process. The concept of women's caucus or ihuriro vehicle value as potential space that can generate a social movement against poverty. In terms of achievements, this project has enabled woman-headed households to access the means of production, food security and sustainable livelihoods. The project has invested in rural women's involvement in advocacy work on equal property rights to land for women and men, which culminated in the national conference on rural women in the process of registration of land. An important initiative is the collective group of women who, with this project, were able to perform actions against the degradation of preservation and improvement of land productivity.

The project targeted and affected woman and girl headed households as follows: 9000 households members of women’s groups, men and women members of the 126 IHURIRO forums are estimated at 5133 including 49% of women, 420 leaders and local authorities including 126 women and 294 men, 50 staff from organizations and institutions working on women's rights. In total, direct project beneficiaries are estimated at 14,603 families, of which 80% are women. As for indirect beneficiaries, their number is estimated at 72.765 people living in these families including 38,565 females