**4. Rwanda's specific climate change related actions in agricultural sector**

Rwanda seeks to transform the agricultural sector from subsistence farming to a sustainable, value-creating, market- oriented food sector with high contributions to national output and household food security [22]. This makes the government of Rwanda to be ambitious concerning the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The basis for actions, by the government of Rwanda, on climate change is enshrined in international and national legal provisions. Among them we can mention United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets that guided actions of countries. MDGs largely succeeded in capturing the popular imagination and reflecting shared priorities [23]. In 2015 UN, member states adopted an ambitious new agenda "transforming our world": the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030), establishing 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by all countries and stakeholders by 2030 to finish the unfinished mission of MDGs and transform the economies and societies of all countries. It has been proven that achieving all the SDGs will be much more challenging without urgent climate action (SGD 13).

At the regional level, Rwanda subscribes to EAC Climate Change Policy (EACCCP) that has been developed for the EAC region to engage a more strategic and cooperative approach to responding to the impacts of climate change and maximizing any potential benefits of the changing climate. Moreover, Rwanda's commitment to combating climate change impacts on the agricultural sector is set out in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) reports under the 2015 Paris Climate Change Declaration that embody its efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Specifically, in Rwanda climate change is recognized at the highest level of government as a potential threat to productivity and sustainability of the agricultural sector and livelihoods. This is more so because the agricultural sector constitutes the backbone of the economy of the country and contributes up to the third of GDP of the country. As a result, the government of Rwanda developed and is implementing a number of policy initiatives including: mechanisms to implement provisions of international climate change provisions, for instance the implementation of National Adaptation Programmes of Actions (NAPA); reforming public institutions by including climate change management functions; and mainstreaming climate change within policy processes.

#### **4.1 Land use consolidation**

The agricultural land in Rwanda is fragmented and mainly located at hilly slopes [22]. In order to optimize the use of available farmland, the government focused on the agriculture land utilization systems. In this regard, the Ministry of Agricultural and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) initiated the Crop Intensification Program in 2007 in which the main pillar was the Land Use Consolidation policy of 2008. According to NISR [14], land consolidation is a reallocation of parcels of land to overcome the effects of fragmentation. Farmers in the same area, adjacent to each other choose a single crop and use of a single cultivation regime (inputs, schedule of planning…). through this approach, the boundaries and rights of parcels remain intact and the government provides subsidized inputs for farmers in a given area with closed parcels to grow the same priority crops on a minimum size area of 5 hectares in a synchronized manner and hence improves the productivity.
