Rwanda’s new national nutrition policy is the reference document for all nutrition stakeholders and supports the acceleration of nutrition indicators. While the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Strategy for Integrated Early Childhood Development Nutrition and WASH (2018–2024) provides an enabling environment for the acceleration of nutrition progress, an advocacy strategy for nutrition is missing. Advocacy to the relevant government entities is ongoing, with the mainstreaming of nutrition into the national planning and budgeting process already under way. Actions were prioritized with stakeholder institutions and a joint single action plan was developed to guide implementation.

During the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit, Rwanda committed to increase its allocation for nutrition-specific and -sensitive interventions to US$67 million by 2030. A resource mapping exercise is ongoing with support from the World Bank and Global Financing Facility, and a funding gap analysis on nutrition interventions will be undertaken in 2022. Advocacy for the Government, donors and stakeholders to increase nutrition investment is ongoing. No budget analysis took place in 2021 but mainstreaming of nutrition into national budgets is under way. Expenditure will be tracked through integrated financial management information systems’ budget execution reports, starting with 2022–2023.

The 2020/2021 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) results were available at the end of 2021 and showed significant progress on key nutrition indicators. The Government is currently promoting animal-source foods through the distribution of eggs and village cooking demonstrations in 13 districts. The campaign for fruit tree planting was also successfully conducted countrywide, with seed distribution in 13 districts. In 2021, Rwanda benefited from SUN Movement training on strengthening nutrition leadership, enabling participants to improve the MSP’s nutrition coordination. Rwanda also shared its experience on innovative nutrition interventions, such as stunting visualization using a length mat.

The NCDA is the national coordination entity for nutrition, early childhood development and hygiene. The Government finances all nutrition governance systems but some gaps remain. At the subnational level, districts developed plans to eliminate malnutrition, monitored by committees led by the district vice-mayor. A health structure with nutritionists is available in all health-care facilities at all levels. The nutrition information and monitoring system is integrated into a functional national information system – the Rwandan Integrated Health Management Information System. Rwanda conducts a Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis every three years and a DHS every five years.

The child scorecard is a tool for monitoring health and nutrition interventions among individual children at the village level, and is used in 19 out of 30 districts. The national scale-up of this tool is ongoing in order to achieve stunting-free villages throughout the country.