What is Grinika Programme?

UPSC Mains General Studies Paper II

Topic: India and its neighbourhood- relations.

What is Girinka Programme and Where it is being run?

Grinika is a national social protection scheme of Rwanda to provide one cow per family
The programme was initiated by President Paul Kagame in response to alarmingly high rate of childhood malnutrition and as way to accelerate poverty reduction and integrate livestock and crop farming.
Under this programme, poorest residing in region get cows from Government and gift first female calf to neighbour to promote brotherhood.

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The programme is based on premise that providing dairy cow to poor, transforms livelihoods, reconciles communities improving agricultural productivity through use of manure as fertilizers.
It has led to increase in agricultural production in Rwanda – especially milk production and products and has reduced malnutrition and increased incomes.

PM Modi, being the first ever PM of Indian to visit Rwanda, has gifted 200 cows to villagers from Rweru villages as part of Rwandan Government’s Grinka Programme.

PM has assured Rwanda about India’s plan to open a High Commission in Rwanda.
The mission will help in establishing communication between two countries while ensuring facilities for consular, passport and visa.
Mutual agreements on leather, allied areas and agricultural research were also signed beside talks on strengthening partnership in trade and investment, capacity building, development partnership and people to people ties.
In a bid to boost the bilateral strategic ties, India has extended 200 million Dollar credit lines to Rwanda, one of Africa’s fastest growing economies. The move will help in strengthening cooperation in trade and agriculture sectors of two countries.Two lines of credit has been extended by India to Rwanda, 100 Million Dollar each for industrial parks development in Kigali special economic zone (SEZ) and for agriculture development.While the credit lines will help in boosting Rwanda’s development, an agreement on defence is also signed between two countries.

Rwanda is a landlocked country in central Africa that has pulled itself up from the ravages of a civil war in the mid 1990s
It hopes to retain stability with the international support. That is why Rwanda would look forward to becoming an important ally of India in the continent.
Chinese President had also visited Rwanda a day before PM Modi’s visit, this indicates the importance of a tiny African state located in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa.
India must not loose opportunity to make a hold in the region as China has already moved into the African continent in a big way and intends expanding its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to cover Africa.

Rwanda is a sovereign state in Central and East Africa and one of the smallest countries on the African mainland.
Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda is in the African Great Lakes region and is highly elevated.
Christianity is the largest religion in the country; the principal language is Kinyarwanda, spoken by most Rwandans, with English and French serving as official languages.
Rwanda’s economy suffered heavily in wake of the 1994 genocide, but has since strengthened.
The economy is based mostly on subsistence agriculture. Coffee and tea are the major cash crops for export.
Tourism is a fast-growing sector and is now the country’s leading foreign exchange earner.
Rwanda is one of only two countries in which mountain gorillas can be visited safely, and visitors pay high prices for gorilla tracking permits.