LiveLihoods in the Eastern Province of Rwanda: Impact evaluation of the Entreprise Development Programme’s Support to Tuzamurane Cooperative.

The Enterprise Development Programme (EDP)1 started in 2008 in Rwanda. The core objectives of EDP are to:

• Build sustainable agricultural enterprises, providing them with grants and loans.
• Improve the lives of smallholder farmers, support women’s empowerment and seek wider systemic change.
• Involve supporters in governance of the programme, through an investment committee and board.             In working toward these objectives, EDP in Rwanda supported four enterprises in different value chains, with a total investment of £532,499 (64% of which was loans). This evaluation focuses on one of these enterprises – the Tuzamurane cooperative of organic pineapple growers, which processes and exports organic-certified dried pineapple to European markets. EDP began supporting the cooperative in 2015 and continues supporting it today. Tuzamurane is located in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. It was created in 2005, formally registered as a cooperative in 2006, and its members have continued improving the quality of their produce. The idea of drying pineapple, organic-certified pineapple in particular, emerged in 2009. The cooperative and Oxfam began working together in 2010, and it obtained organic certification in 2013. In 2015, Oxfam in Rwanda worked with Tuzamurane to develop and submit a proposal for EDP support (funding and accompaniment). Support was approved in September 2015 and grants and loans were disbursed at the beginning of 2016.

At enterprise level, EDP’s support is expected to bring about an increase in production, diversification of production (resulting in risk mitigation and value-addition) and improvement in management. This should result in improved access to markets and job creation. This in turn is expected to bring about changes in the lives of the smallholder farmers involved with the enterprise – members of the cooperative and its suppliers, in the case of Tuzamurane. In particular, EDP’s support aims to bring about increased income and economic empowerment for women.

Finally, EDP’s support is expected to bring about a diversification of investors, in particular from the formal sector. Sustainability of the initial investment is reached when further investments can be accessed through banks, without EDP being guarantor for the loans.

This evaluation is part of Oxfam’s Effectiveness Review series, a series of impact evaluations of completed or mature projects, randomly selected each year for an evaluation of their impact. The Effectiveness Review series is part of Oxfam GB’s Strategic Evidence Framework and is part of the organization’s effort to better understand and communicate its effectiveness, and to enhance learning across the organization.

During the 2019/20 financial year, EDP in Rwanda was one of the projects selected for an Effectiveness Review. The decision to focus on one enterprise, Tuzamurane, was made in consideration of the available resources and in order to maximize learning.