• The funding from FID, building on a previous $6.5m grant from USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, aims to help Rwanda reach their goal of ending extreme poverty by 2035.
• The innovative project will provide the Rwandan government with the essential tools and resources to expand Village Enterprise’s proven and cost-effective poverty graduation model nationwide.
KIGALI, Rwanda, July 17, 2024 — Village Enterprise, a nonprofit seeking to end extreme poverty in rural Africa through entrepreneurship, innovation, and collective action, has received a $1.3 million grant from the Fund for Innovation in Development (FID), an independent body hosted by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). FID supports solutions with high potential for impact against poverty and inequality, rigorously evaluates their effectiveness, and accelerates their deployment on a larger scale. Their grant will co-finance Village Enterprise’s partnership with the Government of Rwanda to scale its poverty graduation model in the country, equipping vulnerable households to break the cycle of extreme poverty and become more resilient to climate change.
This co-financing will enable Village Enterprise to provide critical training, startup cash, and business mentoring to people living in extreme poverty to help them set up their own businesses. It will also allow Village Enterprise to train government staff to lead on implementing this poverty graduation program independently. Together, Village Enterprise and the Government of Rwanda will support over 31,000 households to set up, launch, and run their own businesses. These businesses will range from clothing and produce retail, to hairdressers and bicycle repair enterprises. The project has already trained 7,680 households to become entrepreneurs to date.
On top of this, the funding from FID will also allow Village Enterprise to test and incorporate adaptations for climate change into their model—such as providing crop insurance through private sector actors for farming enterprises and integrating climate-smart agriculture best practices into their training curriculum.
Dianne Calvi, CEO and President of Village Enterprise, said: “Village Enterprise is excited to continue our collaboration with the Government of Rwanda and empower households to put an end to extreme poverty through entrepreneurship thanks to the co-financing from the Fund for Innovation in Development and USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures. It’s by uniting efforts and taking collective action to scale proven innovative solutions with governments that we can sustainably and effectively end extreme poverty.”
Village Enterprise will work closely with the Government of Rwanda to catalyze an additional $22 million in funding and create an outcomes fund to further streamline and scale the program across the country. These resources will help the program reach an additional 125,000 households by 2027, with the aim of setting the stage for further scaling the model to end extreme poverty in Rwanda by 2035.
Claudine Nyinawagaga, Director General of the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency, said: “We enthusiastically welcome the grant extended to Village Enterprise, signifying another momentous stride in our collective efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in Rwanda. This partnership is empowering thousands of households to establish sustainable businesses, playing a pivotal role in our pursuit to eliminate poverty by 2035. Village Enterprise’s cost-effective poverty graduation model closely aligns with our National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation, and we view them as one of the critical partners in its successful implementation. Together, we are not only transforming lives but also illuminating a path for other African nations to effectively eliminate extreme poverty and combat poverty.”
The project is a prime example of the type of government and NGO partnership that Esther Duflo, Nobel Prize winning economist and Chairperson of the FID Board, called for in Devex in order to end extreme poverty.
Arthur Germond, Country Director – Rwanda at AFD, said: “Village Enterprise’s program is fully aligned with the work of the AFD Group in Rwanda. Our projects are structured around three core pillars: climate; health; vocational training and integration. Our action focuses on the most vulnerable populations, in particular those most vulnerable to climate change.”
Eliminating extreme poverty in Rwanda and beyond
Around 4.8 million people in Rwanda live in extreme poverty, and the Rwandan government has committed to eliminating poverty by 2035. As part of the program’s roll-out, Village Enterprise will work alongside the Government of Rwanda, training government parasocial workers and sharing best practices on how to be successful mentors to first-time entrepreneurs.
Ultimately, this capacity building will enable the Government of Rwanda to significantly scale the implementation of poverty graduation programming. This further scaling of Village Enterprise’s model has the potential to not only reach millions of individuals in poverty across Rwanda, but to be introduced and utilized by other pan-African governments.
Media enquiries:
Village Enterprise – villageenterprise@wearesevenhills.com
About Village Enterprise
Village Enterprise’s mission is to end extreme poverty in rural Africa through entrepreneurship, innovation, and collective action. We work with vulnerable women, refugees, and youth who are most impacted by climate change, conflict, and displacement, and equip them with skills and resources to launch climate-smart businesses, build savings, and put themselves and their families onto a sustainable path out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise has started over 86,000 businesses, trained over 287,000 first-time entrepreneurs, and positively transformed the lives of over 1,805,000 people in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Mozambique, and Tanzania.
About the Fund for Innovation in Development
The Fund for Innovation in Development is a new and ambitious financing mechanism. FID’s goal is to support innovation to contribute to the fight against poverty and inequality. It allows innovators from all types of organizations—research institutions, NGOs, governments, companies—to test new ideas, experiment and demonstrate what works on the basis of evaluation approaches. The objective is to scale up the most effective solutions with the
most positive and lasting impact.