A joint delegation from TradeMark Africa (TMA), Mastercard Foundation, and the International Trade Centre (ITC) recently visited a young woman-led horticultural export business in Rwamagana, Rwanda. This visit underscored their collective commitment to helping Rwandan youth and women-led horticultural enterprises achieve significant success in export markets. The delegation gained valuable insights into ongoing interventions and their emerging impact, all designed to enhance value addition, improve market access, and create meaningful employment opportunities for young people, particularly young women, within Rwanda’s expanding horticultural sector.
The host for this visit was RAI Green Stalks Ltd, an enterprise participating in the Value-added Initiative to Boost Employment (VIBE). VIBE is a collaborative effort between TMA and ITC, in partnership with Mastercard Foundation. RAI Green Stalks Ltd is a key exporter of fresh produce, including chillies, avocados, French beans, plantains, and passion fruits, to international destinations like the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates.
Allen Umulisa, founder and CEO of RAI Green Stalks Ltd, noted that the increasing demand for her company’s products has outpaced its internal production capacity. To address this, the enterprise collaborates with youth-owned cooperatives and aggregates supply, enabling it to meet larger export volumes while upholding the stringent quality standards demanded by international buyers. This approach of sourcing products from local cooperatives and smallholder farmers, many of whom are women and young people, generates economic opportunities for these individuals, thereby fostering a positive ripple effect on their livelihoods.
The delegation also toured several of the enterprise’s operational sites, including a greenhouse used for seed multiplication, a demonstration farm, and a chilli farm managed by a youth cooperative. These tours effectively showcased how young farmers are integrated into formal export markets through capacity building, market linkages, and export compliance support provided by the VIBE programme.
Elisee Kamanzi, Mastercard Foundation’s Acting Rwanda Country Manager, emphasised that RAI Green Stalks Ltd’s focus on value addition, job creation, and exports aligns perfectly with the Foundation’s objective of creating dignified and fulfilling work for young people and women. He highlighted how strategic partnerships and interventions such as this empower local enterprises, including RAI Green Stalks, to expand and thrive in international markets. Similarly, Rosine Uwamariya, TMA Rwanda Country Director, underscored the synergy between the enterprise’s integrated value-chain approach and TMA’s mission to facilitate trade for collective prosperity. She stated that the visit highlighted the ongoing need to address common barriers faced by Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprise (MSME) exporters, such as limited access to finance, challenges in meeting global standards, the digital divide, and insufficient connections to buyers. Through their partnership with both the Mastercard Foundation and the International Trade Centre, TMA is actively working to bridge these gaps, particularly for women- and youth-led MSMEs.
Despite their significant potential, many MSMEs within Rwanda’s horticulture, poultry, meat, and dairy value chains encounter considerable obstacles. These include a lack of export knowledge, financial constraints, and difficulties in adhering to global standards. The partnership actively addresses these barriers for selected programme participants by offering capacity building, facilitating market linkages, and ensuring compliance with international quality standards, with a strong emphasis on including women, youth, refugees, and people with disabilities.
