Sebeya Catchment partners to set up conservation fund for flood control

A coalition of members of civil society organizations are set to establish a revolving fund dubbed “Community Environment Conservation Fund (CECF)” with aim to restore and conserve Sebeya River catchments and control the river floods in a sustainable way. The initiative to establish the fund is still at proposal phase. For several years, overflow by river has been affecting farm and off-farm businesses surrounding the river leading to huge economic losses in the districts Rubavu, Nyabihu, Rutsiro and Ngororero Districts that rely strongly on rain-fed agriculture. Landscape restoration is underway on 18,000 hectares that are under risk of soil erosion on Sebeya River catchment with anti-erosion activities, agro-forestry, terraces, tea plantations, rainwater harvesting tanks, climate smart agriculture practices and others and at least 70 percent has been restored. Among the highlights of the Rwf 22 billion project, part of the money will be invested in the revolving fund to ensure sustainable conservation of restored land in the catchments and thus curb floods. A revolving fund is a fund or account that remains available to finance an organization’s continuing operations without any fiscal year limitation, because the organization replenishes the fund by repaying money used from the account. Celestin Hitimana, The project manager at Rwanda Rural Rehabilitation Initiative (RWARRI) said that preparation of the fund is underway. He said it is part of the development of innovative financing mechanisms and value chains for improved livelihoods through ecological and economic benefits of the people in the catchment. “The project will establish the community environment conservation fund as an economic-empowering mechanism for communities to access credit and build a resource base to tackle poverty while restoring the land,” he said. He explained that a management committee of the fund will be set up considering that the fund will be accessed through ‘award as loan’ for the competitive environment projects, but also, to recognize the best performers in the landscape restoration. “The innovative financing mechanism aims to incentivize people in the catchment to both conserve the land and get economic benefits. We will target people especially those in groups that can initiate their own bankable conservation projects at lower interest rates,” he said. He said they will work with financial institutions close to the beneficiaries that will help in assessing and approving bankable projects. “It has to be done through competition. The fund must continue even after the project closes and be monitored from village to district level. There will be a business advisory team to make projects bankable. It will start with 60 villages,” he noted. The projects include those conserving water resources, smart agriculture, and forestry, green mining, among many others. According to Joseph Gafaranga, The Secretary General of Urugaga Imbaraga Organization, which is partnering in the project implementation, there are still many challenges related to low uptake of rainwater harvesting tanks for all households and anti-erosion practices as well as illegal mining. Government is also constructing a Rwf7.5 billion dam to curb Sebeya River floods. The funds were mobilized by the Government of Rwanda through the Rwandan Water Resources Board in collaboration with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Netherlands Development Organization (SNV). Green jobs and saving So far 194 saving and loan groups have been established and saved Rwf38 million , 129 households got cows for livelihoods transformation,782 households got kitchen gardens to beat malnutrition as over 11,000 residents have secured jobs amid the Covid -19 to restore the degraded landscapes. The groups have also saved in Ejo Heza, the long term voluntary savings scheme in Rwanda, he said. So far, over 18,000 residents have saved over Rwf120 million in the saving scheme.

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Sebeya Catchment partners to set up conservation fund for flood control