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Advocacy
Rwanda is committed to protecting the environment and addressing climate change, and has a vision to be a climate resilient and carbon neutral economy by 2050. The country is working to achieve its 2030 goal of reducing emissions by 38% by engaging with partners, both nationally and internationally, to attract sustainable green investment.
In this light, the Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (2011) was developed, the Rwanda Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) were developed and submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015 and updated in May 2020.
In 2019, the Environmental Policy was revised and became the National Environment and Climate Change Policy, all geared to leave no one behind for long-lasting development results. Despite the above mentioned efforts, there is need to carry out environmental advocacy so as to ensure Environment and Climate Change mainstreaming in the country’s sustainable development agenda.
Education has been highlighted as an important tool for the attainment of sustainable development. Environment and Climate Change Education enable the development of knowledge, skills, perspectives and values that empower the citizens to assume responsibility for creating and enjoying a sustainable future. Environmental Education and awareness has been used as a tool to increase public participation in sustainable development, capacity build the future leaders to have the commitment, expertise and leadership to ensure sustainable development; integrate environment and sustainability issues in the school curriculum to improve the quality of learning and make it relevant to the needs of the society; Capacity build the media to report and communicate sustainable development by providing Information required to address pertinent sustainable developmental challenges; Enhance the quality and relevance of Technical and Higher education to respond to local sustainable development challenges.
Environmental Education Programme which include building capacities of teachers, youth, sectors and districts, greening school initiatives, awarded best green projects with innovations, enhanced networking among universities and research institutions have been established to enhance awareness on the integration of environment and climate change issues. Civil Society Organizations have been engaged in public awareness and advocacy campaigns for environmental management. In this regard, several environmental education programmes have been initiated, community participation enhanced, different media are used to report on environmental issues and forge more partnership with all stakeholders to access environmental information.
Environment and climate change Education in schools is mainly through different subjects in primary schools and secondary schools. Environmental clubs have been created and supported to create environmental stewardship among the students. REMA will continue to entrench and strengthen environmental education in schools in ways that positions environment and climate resilience to serve as a pillar for socio‐economic transformation. These should be apply to all educational sectors namely formal, non‐formal and informal in order to empower all citizens to participate in environmental management and climate resilience towards sustainable development.
REMA builds environmental stewardship by training different groups of people from government, private sector, NGOs, CBOs, media and members of environmental committees. This has resulted in mainstreaming of Environment and Climate change (ECC) into strategies, programmes and plans of development sectors of the ecomomy to foster suatainable development of Rwanda.
REMA developed appropriates tools, checklists and guidelines for ECC mainstreaming and conducts on fiscal year basis an assessment of integration and implementation of ECC activities into Sector-Ministries Plans and Programs and makes appropriate recommendations on issues that require special attention to support concerned Sectors to better plan for further achievements.
Description and Facts
Climate change is a complex, cross-cutting issue combining adaptation, mitigation and environmental concerns with development efforts. This presents a coordination challenge in the need for various ministries, departments, agencies and non-governmental stakeholders to jointly develop programmes and projects.
Meanwhile, climate change, rapid population growth and urbanization are putting a strain on Rwanda and pose serious risks for the future. Rwanda needs to invest an estimated US$50–300 million per year in adaptation – or more than US$600 million, if social protection and accelerated development are included.
Delivering the climate change mitigation and adaptation actions depends on the availability of funding. Many of the national climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions, have goals that are conditional on external funding. Rwanda is in a good position to attract bilateral and international climate finance. Recent successes in securing climate finance from the different climate funds including Adaptation Fund (AF), Least Developed Countries’ Fund (LDCF) and Green Climate Fund (GCF) highlight the opportunities.
Climate Finance refers to local, national or transnational financing—drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change. Climate finance is needed for mitigation, because large-scale investments are required to significantly reduce emissions. Climate finance is equally important for adaptation, as significant financial resources are needed to adapt to the adverse effects and reduce the impacts of a changing climate.
In 2015, REMA was nominated by MINECOFIN to serve as National Designated Authority (NDA) for engagement with the Green Climate Fund. Since then, a lot was achieved including:
Being a NDA, REMA ensures the overall coordination of GCF activities in Rwanda by providing strategic oversight with support of the NCT. REMA is in charge of providing No-Objections for all projects before they are sent to the GCF for funding to ensure those projects/programs are well aligned with country priorities.
REMA is again an operational focal point of the Global Environment Facility in charge of ensuring that Projects to be submitted to the GEF are well aligned with country priorities. So far, more that USD 81M have been mobilized from the GEF for implementing National Projects.
REMA is eager to contribute fully to other major means through which the additional funds could be obtained, inter alia, national budget, dedicated funding from bilateral and multilateral sources, private sector finance, carbon markets, payment for ecosystem services (PES) among others, funding needs out-way available financial resources.
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