Kigali, 25 April 2018- Gender Climate Change and Agriculture Support Programme (GCCASP) was designed by the Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion(MIGEPROF) in partnership with NEPAD. The program will run for five years starting July 2018, aiming at empowering rural women and in particular smallholder women farmers to enhance their resilience so that they can better cope with the potential adverse impacts of climate change and enhance women economic empowerment and participation in the agriculture sector. According to statistics, more than 80% of Rwandan population lives of farming and the bigger percentage of them are women who face climate change impacts. While officiating CCASP workshop which brought partners from Government institutions, CSOs, Private sector and local Government officials working in the areas of Gender, Agriculture, climate change and women economic empowerment, the Permanent Secretary in The Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion UMUTONI GATSINZI Nadine said that The Ministry in partnership with stakeholders will continue to do everything possible to create a favorable environment in terms of legal and policy frameworks and also equip women with relevant skills like modern farming practices, environmental conservation, smart agriculture technologies and with a gender lens enforcement. The Permanent Secretary went on saying: ’This program comes to help smallholder rural female farmers. We will train them to attain skills preparing farming seasons, how to do their agri-business in case of climate change. They will also be given seeds based on the area of cultivation, modern farming with technology which can resist the climate change.’ NEPAD Agency Programme Officer, Edna Kalima said that the programme came about due to the recognition of the work women do in the agriculture sector and she underlined that women need to be equipped with skills which enable them to resist climate change impact. The implementation of GCCASP will be basically piloted in Nyaruguru District and Ngoma Districts, of southern and Eastern provinces respectively based on the fact that they are among the districts with higher poverty incidence and vulnerable to Climate change effects. After the pilot stage which will benefit close to 12 thousand females, the program will expand to the whole country targeting female dominated cooperatives nearly to two hundred thousand members in five years. Beyond Rwanda, the programme is being implemented in other 4 countries namely: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Malawi and Niger