Rwanda

ached over 30,000 adolescent girls and young women since 2023 in Rwanda, equipping them with age-appropriate entrepreneurship, employability, education and life-skills training, as well as the tools to start and scale their own businesses. The five-year programme applies BRAC’s proven approaches using microfinance, youth empowerment, agriculture and skills development to improve lives and livelihoods, growing the skills, confidence, and agency of girls and young women to lead and shape their own futures. It targets to support 86,000 adolescent girls and young women by 2030.

When women have access to financial services, they invest in brighter futures for themselves, their families, and their communities.

BRAC Rwanda Microfinance Company PLC provides responsible financial services to people who are excluded from the mainstream financial system. It particularly focuses on women living in poverty in rural and hard-to-reach areas of the country.

With access to financial services tailored to their needs and financial and digital literacy training, women are strengthening their financial resilience and building stable livelihoods. Access to financial services is a core part of BRAC’s holistic approach to development, complementing its social programmes to drive sustainable change and support people to lift themselves out of poverty.

When communities lead, climate solutions last.

Rwanda faces growing environmental challenges, many made worse by climate change—like extreme weather, water shortages, and loss of biodiversity.

To strengthen local climate resilience, BRAC International Rwanda works with District and Sector Adaptation Planning Committees. Together, we support community members to take the lead. Through hands-on training in the Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) process, committee members identified climate hazards, proposed local solutions, and created action plans.

By supporting local leadership and practical solutions, communities can prioritise needs and protect their environment—and their future.

Scaling a proven pathway out of poverty in partnership with the Government of Rwanda

Nearly 1 in 10 people live in extreme poverty. They face multiple, reinforcing barriers that keep them and their households in a poverty trap. Economic growth alone hasn’t proven sufficient to create economic opportunity to overcome these traps. Traditional long-standing social assistance and other programmes have not adequately addressed the root cause. There is a need for new tools to create opportunity for those furthest behind. The Graduation approach is a proven way to help people graduate out of extreme poverty.

Graduation is a sequenced, two-year investment that helps people build sustainable livelihoods. Each participant gets support to meet basic needs and receives a productive asset. Assets could be livestock or inventory to start a small business. They also get coaching to build confidence, know-how, and hope.

The Government of Rwanda adopted the National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation (NSSG) in 2022 representing a notable commitment to empowering people in poverty to develop sustainable livelihoods and establish a pathway out of poverty as part of the Government’s broader efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

BRAC works closely with the Government of Rwanda and other organisations to scale this model through established public programmes and existing government investment. We provide technical assistance, policy advocacy, and capacity-building support.

The Graduation approach was first developed by BRAC in Bangladesh in 2002. Today, over 100 organisations in nearly 50 countries use it. BRAC hopes to help 21 million people escape extreme poverty by 2030—including 4.6 million families by 2026.

Where young people discover their potential and their future.

Young people in Rwanda hold tremendous potential, yet many continue to face challenges that limit their opportunities. While literacy rates are high, students living in poverty, especially in rural areas often leave school early. Limited access to job training, digital skills, and economic opportunities has contributed to an unemployment rate of around 17% among youth ages 15–24.BRAC Rwanda’s Youth Empowerment Programme combines social and economic empowerment with education to ensure that young people especially girls and young women can reach their full potential.