Sustainability implications of Rwanda’s Vision 2050 long-term development strategy

Sustainability implications of Rwanda’s Vision 2050 long-term development strategy

Improving livelihoods in Rwanda requires overcoming food insecurity and malnutrition. Vision 2050 is Rwanda’s long-term development strategy, yet little is known about its potential trade-offs for the country’s biodiversity, forest cover, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Scenario analysis can pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability science Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 485 - 499
Main Authors: Perez-Guzman, Katya, Imanirareba, Dative, Jones, Sarah K., Neubauer, Rudolf, Niyitanga, Fidèle, Naramabuye, François Xavier
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Tokyo Springer Japan 2023
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Agricultural policy
Agricultural practices
Agriculture
Beans
Biodiversity
Carbon sequestration
Cassava
Climate Change Management and Policy
Climate change mitigation
Crop production
Development strategies
Diet
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecological farming
Emissions
Environment
Environmental Economics
Environmental Management
Farm buildings
Food consumption
Food security
Greenhouse gases
Land cover
Land use
Land use management
Land use planning
Landscape Ecology
Malnutrition
Post-harvest decay
Potatoes
Public Health
Special Feature: Globally-Consistent National Pathways towards Sustainable Food and Land-use Systems
Special Feature: Original Article
Strategy
Sustainability
Sustainable Development
Sustainable livelihood
Trends
Wildlife conservation
Rwanda
FABLE
Integrated assessment models
Agroecology
Vision 2050
Prospective analysis
Rwanda
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Summary:Improving livelihoods in Rwanda requires overcoming food insecurity and malnutrition. Vision 2050 is Rwanda’s long-term development strategy, yet little is known about its potential trade-offs for the country’s biodiversity, forest cover, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Scenario analysis can provide insights into how to achieve such goals more sustainably. Here, we use the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy (FABLE) Calculator, a simple integrated assessment tool, to explore potential sustainability implications by 2050 through two scenarios: (1) Current Trends and (2) Vision 2050. The Vision 2050 pathway incorporates components of the government’s long-term development strategy and associated national agricultural policy targets. It includes greater increases in crop productivity and decreases in post-harvest losses, and shifts to more sustainable diets, compared to the Current Trends pathway. Results show that the Vision 2050 pathway would, relative to Current Trends, lead to a greater decrease in agricultural land area and an increase in non-forested natural land-cover area, with consequent decreases in GHG emissions from agriculture, increases in carbon sequestration, and increases in the share of land that can support biodiversity conservation. Shifts to a healthier diet in the Vision 2050 pathway would only be compatible with national agricultural priorities if these diets favor consumption of foods that underpin sustainable livelihoods in Rwanda, such as beans, cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, banana, and corn. We discuss the potential for integrated land-use planning and adoption of agroecological farming practices to help Rwanda achieve food security, livelihood, biodiversity, and climate mitigation goals in tandem.
ISSN:1862-4065
1862-4057
DOI:10.1007/s11625-022-01266-0