Advancing Food and Nutrition Security under CAADP: Evidence, Progress and Policy Action in Rwanda

Three in four Rwandans cannot afford a healthy diet. Under CAADP, Rwanda has committed to cutting that share to 40%. How will it get there? That was the question on the table.

On 22 October 2026, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), convened a half-day workshop at the Park Inn by Radisson, Kigali. Government, researchers, development partners, civil society and the private sector met to review new evidence on diet affordability, take stock of Rwanda's CAADP nutrition commitments, and agree on what joint action should look like.

The CAADP healthy-diet target

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is the African Union's flagship framework for agricultural transformation. Building on the Maputo (2003) and Malabo (2014) Declarations, the Kampala Declaration, adopted in 2025, sets the agrifood systems agenda for 2026–2035: 22 impact targets under six strategic objectives, backed by a pledge to mobilize US$100 billion in public and private investment and by mutual accountability through the Biennial Review. Strategic Objective 3, on food and nutrition security, sets the headline target the workshop focused on: 60% of the population able to afford a healthy diet.

Rwanda, ranked the best overall performer in implementing CAADP (Fourth CAADP Biennial Review, 2024), has strengthened its food systems and built nutrition into national planning. But rising food prices, income gaps, climate shocks and changing food environments keep healthy diets out of reach for most households.

Four tools, one accountability agenda

Jean Claude Kabano, Policy Advisor at GAIN, set out the scale of the challenge. In 2024, 75% of Rwandans could not afford a healthy diet, only 41% of women achieved minimum dietary diversity, and food and beverages took 61% of household spending. Affordability, he argued, is shaped jointly by what agriculture produces, what markets charge, what finance funds, what social protection cushions and what districts deliver.

He presented four complementary tools developed by GAIN with MINAGRI and partners:

• Measure. The Food Systems Dashboard validated 80 national indicators, many at district level. In May 2026, a review of 59 Food Systems Countdown Initiative (FSCI) indicators updated or corrected 30 with official Rwandan data.
• Finance. Financial Flows to Food Systems (3FS), a government-led exercise with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) and 36 institutions, tracked about US$3.9 billion between 2018/19 and 2023/24. Domestic financing rose 24% and external financing fell 30%, yet only 16% of domestic and 6% of external food systems financing reached nutrition and health.
• Coordinate. Of the 133 influential actors mapped, MINAGRI, MINECOFIN and the National Child Development Agency (NCDA) are the most central, but there is no joint action or monitoring plan across agriculture, health and nutrition.
• Align. Food systems are well embedded in Vision 2050, the Second National Strategy for Transformation (NST2) and the Fifth Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA5), but there are no explicit price, tax or subsidy measures for nutritious foods, and no single food systems scorecard.

His conclusion: the binding constraint is no longer policy but joint action.

Tracking affordability in near real time

Dr James Warner, Program Leader at IFPRI Rwanda, stressed that the healthy-diet indicator answers several policy questions at once: whether nutritious foods are produced and accessible, who can afford them given wages and income distribution, and how affordability varies by place, season, gender, and between rural and urban areas.

He showed how high-frequency market data can track diet costs far more closely than annual averages. Using MINAGRI's eSoko price data (about 70 markets, 90 commodities and 2.4 million observations) and Rwanda's food-based dietary guidelines, IFPRI and partners costed the cheapest recommended diet in each of the 30 districts, every month from April 2019 to December 2024. Four findings stood out:

• Affordability is the binding constraint. The diet's cost rose about 67% over the period as food inflation surged after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. An estimated 70% of formal and informal wage earners could not afford it.
• Nutritious foods go first. When prices rise, households cut back on beef, dark green leafy vegetables and fruits, and shift towards grains and pulses, trading nutrition for calories.
• Place and season matter. Diets cost more in urban areas, where wages are only marginally higher, and along the border with the DR Congo; districts near Tanzania and Uganda are cheaper. Costs peak in November, during the lean season.
• Perishables are poorly integrated. Tomato prices are more volatile and vary more across markets than bean prices, so consumers face wider price differences for perishable vegetables than for staples.

The policy message: combine high-frequency price monitoring with consumption data so that affordability responses can be targeted in time and place. The full analysis is available here.

From evidence to action

GAIN's tools show who finances, decides and coordinates; IFPRI's price monitoring shows where and when households struggle. Together they point to a shared agenda:

• One shared evidence package combining CAADP indicators, the Food Systems Dashboard, 3FS financing data and IFPRI's near-real-time diet costs, feeding the next CAADP Biennial Review and NST2 and PSTA5 monitoring.
• A joint, resourced action and monitoring plan across agriculture, finance, health, NCDA, trade, social protection and local government, with a clear convening authority.
• Money linked to results by institutionalizing 3FS in public expenditure reviews and tagging nutrition spending, so financing can be judged against diet, nutrition and price outcomes.
• Targeted affordability measures, including reducing post-harvest losses, investing in cold chains for perishable foods, steering PSTA5 towards diverse, nutrient-dense foods, and shock-responsive safety nets for the lean season and price spikes.

Closing the workshop, Dr Warner noted that Rwanda has a wealth of data that institutions can use for planning and urged partners to work together towards a common goal: affordable healthy diets for all.

Serge Mugabo is a Senior Research Associate, Emerence Mukangabo is a Senior Research Analyst, and James Warner is the Program Leader. They are all with the IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program.