Technical Expert Support for the Implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) on Climate Change in Rwanda

Rwanda has submitted its intended Nationally Determined Contribution (iNDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The iNDC became the country"s first NDC with the entry into force of the Paris Agreement in 2016 and Rwanda was in 2020 the first Least Developed Country (LDC) to submit an updated NDC, with ambition raised in the adaptation and mitigation targets to outline its commitment to a climate-resilient and low carbon economy development pathway. Moreover, the climate action commitments are guided by Rwanda"s Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (GGCRS), the National Strategy for Transformation (NST-1) and Vision 2050 - a country"s long-term strategic goal that defines its aspirations for the future and sets a target to become an upper middle-income country by 2035 and a high income one by 2050. Rwanda aligns its national climate and development targets with relevant global and regional agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the African Union"s Agenda 2063, the East African Community"s Vision 2050. Consequently, the Rwandan and German governments have entered into a Rwandan-German Climate and Development Partnership in 2022. Being embedded in the new Partnership, the project "Capacity Development for the Implementation of Rwanda's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)" is implemented as a technical assistance intervention by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Rwanda with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project"s goal is to enhance the institutional and financial framework conditions of relevant state and non-state actors in Rwanda for the coordination, implementation and monitoring of the NDC. The project"s political partner is the Ministry of Environment of Rwanda (MoE), and other actors include line ministries and their technical agencies, the Rwanda Green Fund (FONERWA), the Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD), the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), the science and research community, the private sector and civil society actors. The project provides policy and technical advice and capacity development support to key state and non-state actors involved in the implementation and monitoring of the country"s NDC, especially the MoE. This enhances their organizational and process-related capacities and skills for the coordination of the NDC implementation. The project further provides technical advice and training measures to selected public institutions for NDC mainstreaming across relevant sectors. By deploying a capacity development approach aligned with their needs, their technical and organizational capacities to integrate the NDC into key selected policies, strategies and plans are improved. This also helps strengthening their roles in monitoring the NDC implementation, hence resulting in quality data gathering and availability (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification, MRV). The project supports private enterprises (especially SMEs) to develop financially viable business models to access finance for NDC implementation. This is done through the provision of needs-based training measures, coaching and technical advice to access funding opportunities from existing financing facilities in Rwanda. In addition, enabling environments and regulatory frameworks are improved for SMEs to facilitate their access to finance for NDC implementation. Furthermore, the project establishes and fosters gender-responsive cooperation formats to promote and improve evidence-based climate policy advice in cooperation with the science and research community in Rwanda. By improving the capacities of the MoE and other key state and non-state actors to implement and coordinate the NDC while considering evidence-based climate science and research, the project helps to better inform evidence-based decisions.