EAC-ARSRM meeting, March 2025
Annual Rice Sector Review Meeting of EAC
Rice has become the second most important cereal (after maize) for the East African Community (EAC). To promote food and nutrition security in the EAC region through rice sector development, EAC Secretariat has established an EAC Rice Platform (ERP). With support from CARD, the ERP had formulated EAC Rice Development Strategy (ERDS) and ERDS Implementation Plan (ERDSIP; 2023-2030), which was approved by the EAC’s Council of Ministers. With further technical guidance from CARD, the ERP members have recently drawn up a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for assessing progress made under the implementation of the ERDS. Using a set of 13 indicators, the ERP members collected secondary data in their respective Partner States. To share the findings with wider stakeholders, the ERP requested EAC Secretariat and CARD Secretariat to organize EAC’s first ARSRM in Nairobi. This report summarizes the proceedings and outputs from this EAC-ARSRM event and the Senior Regional Advisor’s visit to Kigali.
Annual Rice Sector Review Meeting (ARSRM)
Under the stewardship of CARD Secretariat and EAC Secretariat, the EAC Rice Platform (ERP) members organized a preparatory meeting (in the afternoon of Wednesday, March the 5th), the ARSRM (on Thursday, March the 6th) and a post-ARSRM plenary session (in the morning of Friday, March the 7th) at Hotel Sarova PanAfric in Nairobi. While the ERP members from Burundi (BDI), Kenya (KEN), Somalia (FRS), South Sudan (RSS) and Tanzania (TZA) were physically present throughout; the ERP members from Rwanda (RWA) participated online and members from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could not participate.
During the preparatory meeting, the reporters met with the ERP members in the afternoon on Wednesday, March the 5th and briefed on the purpose, scope and expectations of the ARSRM. Citing the four key deliverables (M&E data, Annual report, Gaps in Funding, and candidate project concepts), the reporters asserted that the ulterior motive of the event is to seek attention of the development partners in sponsoring the various activities proposed under the ERDS. During this preparatory meeting, the five identified speakers (ERP members) were given an opportunity to share and rehearse their PPT presentation to all the ERP members. During the session, the ERP members made several suggestions on improving the contents and style of the PPT presentations. Through the discussions and suggestions, the diverse aspects brought about by the ERP members based on their experience made the deliverable PPT presentations rich to achieve the objectives of the EAC ARSRM.
The ARSRM was attended by the ERP members and development partners such as World Bank, African Development Bank, JICA, KOPIA (South Korea’s Project for Innovation in Agriculture), AGRA and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and also attended from private stakeholder from Gaalooge Agro Business Enterprises. The meeting was opened with welcoming remarks from Chairman for the ERP (Dr. Mary Mutembei, KEN) and opening remarks by EAC Secretariat and CARD Secretariat. Dr. Ruth Musila (KEN) provided an overview of the ERDS by explaining the rationale, guiding principles, goal, vision and strategic objectives. Dr. Hossein (FRS) presented analyses on gaps in funding across the regional rice value chain, using Sub-Sector Intervention Element Matrix (SIEM). He urged the development partners and other public- and private stakeholders to support implementation of the ERDS by addressing the prioritized gaps through regional projects/programs.
Mr. Geofrey Rwiza (TZA) shared the data on various ERDS indicators collected through the M&E exercise in the region. He emphasized that although area under rice cultivation is expanding in the region, the total production of paddy has slightly fallen due to decrease in productivity. Data on indicators for Resilience (R), Competitiveness (C) and Empowerment (E) showed substantial progress towards the set target under the ERDS. Although data on indicators for Industrialization (I) are difficult to obtain, trends of available data on intraregional trading of machineries and rice grains show improvement in the recent years.
Ms. Rachel Mbabazi (UGA) shared a summary of key activities enlisted under the ERDS implementation plan (ERDSIP) for each of the five strategic objectives. By outlining the budget required for these activities, she called upon the development partners and private enterprises to step up investments in integrating the rice value chain of the EAC Partner States. Ms. Rachel Ajambo (Kilimo Trust) invited the participants to discuss the current challenges and solutions in developing regional rice value chain, after highlighting the vulnerabilities of the region’s rice sector to climate change and global market risks. The participants made recommendations on several emerging challenges such as in de-risking financial investments by private entrepreneurs, assessing the impacts of climate change, reducing the postharvest losses and implementing the regional trade policies.
Way forward
The ERP members vowed to maintain the momentum in spearheading the implementation of the ERDS in the region. They have agreed to organize country teams for participating in Seeds Without Border and Extension activities in the upcoming African Development Bank funded regional project through EAC Secretariat. The ERP members have also agreed to continually engage in CARD’s M&E activity and improve their efforts in collecting statistical data related to the ERDS indicators for the calendar years 2023 and 2024.
