Results: Rwanda

Hand in Hand launched in Rwanda at considerable scale. Thanks to our partnership with development and crisis relief NGO CARE International, our trainers gained immediate access to thousands of Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) in Rwanda’s Eastern Province, negating the need to establish groups of our own. The result: vastly exceeded targets, across the board.

The operation, which concluded in 2016, was run out of CARE Rwanda’s headquarters in Kigali, with guidance from Hand in Hand Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya.

Read our Rwanda end-term review
Infographic: 43,011 members

129,816 members

Before Hand in Hand got involved, CARE International’s support focused mainly on spreading financial literacy and providing access to microloans. Our trainers complete the job creation model by providing vital entrepreneurial and business skills training.

Infographic: 30,975 businesses.

83,438 businesses

In keeping with 80 percent of Rwanda’s labourers, most Hand in Hand entrepreneurs work in agriculture. The country’s burgeoning telecommunications industry provides another source of employment. Mobile phone penetration in Rwanda is tacking towards 70 percent, and our entrepreneurs are there to reap the benefits, selling airtime cards, providing phone charging services and more. Our results include businesses run by VSLA members at the start of the programme.

Infographic: 30,975 jobs

115,041 jobs

Jobs are the key metric for our partnership in Rwanda, which set out to create 80,000 jobs – a target we’ve vastly exceeded.

Not only are more enterprises than expected being created, their owners are hiring far more people: more than six employees in an unprecedented 17 percent of cases.


Previous results

Hand in Hand strives to be as transparent as possible. Read our latest independent evaluation below.

 

"CARE has found that community savings groups meet the need for savings and credit at the very bottom rung of the world’s economic ladder. They create a platform from which the poor can advance to receive the more sophisticated financial services that they inevitably need as their resources, skills and confidence grow. Our partnership With Hand in Hand is a fantastic opportunity to pool our expertise on savings-led microfinance with Hand in Hand International’s long experience of job creation."
John Plastow | Program Director | CARE International UK