Developing circular economy in Rwanda as a potential for job creation

The aim of this project was to support private sector companies in their adoption of circular economy business opportunities in Rwanda for sustainable economic development and to stimulate job creation in Rwanda.

The project was commissioned in the context of two initiatives: Invest for Jobs and CE4A initiative.

The Invest for Jobs initiative was created by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), among other partners. It supports German, European and African companies who invest and expand their business activities in Africa. Offering advice, contacts, and financial support, the initiative aims to create 100,000 jobs and 30,000 training places in seven African countries, including Rwanda, to improve local working conditions and promote sustainable economic development.

To support circular economic development in Africa, Invest for Jobs co-initiated the Circular Economy for Africa e.V. (CE4A) initiative. CE4A is a demand-driven and results-oriented consortium of multi-stakeholder actors who share the aim of contributing to the global transition towards a circular economy through joint action in Africa. It focuses on the development of circular thinking, waste management and recycling, and the creation of sustainable, inclusive, quality, and green jobs.

Our tasks included:

  1. Creation of a report on the status and development of the circular economy in Rwanda.
  2. Development of 10 project ideas and 5 concrete project concept notes, indicating how Invest for Jobs can concretely support business or cluster opportunities in the circular economy for more and better jobs in Rwanda, through financing agreements or technical assistance measures. 
  3. Based on the most promising concept notes, development of two Terms of References and cost estimates for the tendering of circular economy support services by the GIZ Invest for Jobs programme. 

Client: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Date: November 2021 – March 2022

Enhancing transparency and sustainability of coffee value chains in Honduras

With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.

After successful development and implementation of INATrace in Rwanda (see our project’s Part 1 and Part 2), INA commissioned the implementation of INATrace also for an upscale, focusing on Honduran coffee producers exporting to the European market.

Together with GIZ Honduras we’ve scaled up the system to a robust multi-tenant system and implemented INATrace in Honduras. We conducted a value chain analysis and mapping for the Honduran producer organisations, export companies and trading partners in close collaboration with local consultants to get a better understanding of the requirements for the IT development. Next, we managed the technical system adaptations according to local requirements and circumstances. Afterwards, we conducted the train-the-trainer sessions to build local capacities. We assisted the local consultants in onboarding new INATrace users and in preparation and implementation of user training. Based on the user feedback in both origin and importing countries, the software was further optimised to the local context.

INATrace connects 3 producer organizations in Honduras with their in-country exporters and buyers in Germany and the UK, enabling full blockchain traceability from the moment farmers deliver their coffee to the processing locations until the sales-ready roasted and packaged product.

Client: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Date: July – October 2021

Read more about INATrace in Rwanda on the INA’s website.

Enhancing transparency and sustainability of coffee value chains in Rwanda (Part 2)

With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.

After the first successful development and implementation of INATrace for Rwandan coffee value chains, the second part of the project involved further development of technologies and optimisation of the system to scale up the use of INATrace in Rwanda. Together with INA and partners Safer Rwanda and Rwanda Smallholder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO), we optimised the INATrace based on the recommendations and feedback given by various system users.

We implemented INATrace to several new coffee farming cooperatives that work with RWASHOSCCO and added additional buyers to the system that can now enjoy the full blockchain traceability of the coffee from the moment the coffee is brought to the cooperatives’ coffee washing station until the product is roasted, packaged and ready to sell.

Our user-centered development approach included implementing user feedback from the previous project phase to make the software more intuitive, including new features that were suggested by the cooperative managers, such as exporting of reports, import of data from previously used systems, increased system configurability regarding company-specific processes, facilities and company-internal system access rights, automatic daily currency exchange rate updates etc.

Client: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Date: July – October 2021

Read more about INATrace in Rwanda on the INA’s website.

Enhancing transparency and sustainability of coffee value chains in Rwanda (Part 1)

With corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe and consumer demands for greater supply chain transparency, large companies are compelled to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in their global supply chains. These companies need to be able to collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in real time. INATrace, an open source traceability system based on blockchain technology, was developed by Anteja on behalf of the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains (INA) to make agricultural commodities traceable from production up to the final product. It not only promotes trust and security between trading partners but also enhances the efficiency of supply chains, which in the long run should increase farmers’ incomes and a contribute to women’s empowerment. INATrace helps European companies collect, retrieve and evaluate information about their products and production conditions along the supply chain in light of the corporate due diligence legislations on the rise in Europe. It is free to use, adaptable, transferable and scalable.

For the first time, INATrace was successfully implemented for Rwandan coffee value chains with the aim to empower women’s coffee cooperatives and to increase coffee value chain transparency. Together with INA and partners the International Women’s Coffee Alliance and Rwanda Smallholder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO), we worked to:

  • improve supply chain traceability
  • create transparency between the actors along the supply chain in regard to supply chain processes, product quality and prices paid to local producers
  • make this information available also to end consumers through a scannable QR code on the coffee packages.

Through efficiency gains along the value chain and a greater awareness, an increased farmers’ income and a contribution to women empowerment is intended in the long run.

Our work included technical implementation, testing, software maintenance and preparation of training materials and documentation. First, the value chain was mapped from women coffee growers to end coffee consumers in Germany to define the visual prototype concept and prioritization of functionality. Technical implementation included several rounds of iterations to develop the MVP prototype, beta version, and the final solution. The final result is an open-source blockchain-based track and trace system. The system provides blockchain verified information on provenance and sustainability attributes to members of the value chain and consumers. The application allows German companies to demonstrate their compliance with the upcoming EU and German due diligence legislations.

Client: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Date: 2020

Read more about INATrace in Rwanda on the INA’s website.

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