“Home-Grown Solutions”: Rwandan Cases of Linking Climate Change, Agriculture and Trade

This briefing paper looks at specific cases of home-grown solutions in Rwanda that have linked agriculture, climate change, and trade. In many LDCs heavily dependent on agriculture, climate change leads to floods or drought that can wipe out entire harvests. This not only inhibits their agricultural trade, but can also be disastrous for the rural poor who often rely on rain-fed agriculture for their own sustenance. Rwanda has been devising unique “home-grown solutions” to this problem, leading to the identification of linkages between agriculture, trade, and climate change at the local level that provide lessons for integrating environmental issues into development processes.