On support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and on partnership with Institute of Policy Analyst and Research (IPAR) Rwanda, Réseau des Femmes is implementing a three (3) years project (March 2021- Feb 2024) of “Assessing the Impact and Scalability of Participatory Home Grown Programs on Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Care work among Women in Rwanda-The GroW Project”. It’s a project composed of a research component and other project intervention activities to be implemented on a randomised control trial with a treatment and control zone in each district.
Despite of the existing efforts on promotion gender equality in Rwanda, women’s economic empowerment is still
constrained by the unequal distribution of unpaid care work. Building on the experience of the Réseau des Femmes’
holistic initiative on reducing and redistributing unpaid care work this project will help to uncover what works to shift gender norms around the burden of unpaid care. Using a mixed methods approach, including a randomised control trial with realist based qualitative assessments, research will explore how Réseau des Femmes’ holistic initiative addressing unpaid care work can be scaled, replicated, and sustained elsewhere in Rwanda to support gender-inclusive responses to COVID-19 challenges, if successful. By producing evidence on promising models to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work, this project will be able to scale interventions to advance women’s economic empowerment.
Initially, Réseau des Femmes have been implementing home grown programs and gender transformative approaches
aiming at reducing and redistributing unpaid care work among women’s in some Sectors of its work district of Rwamagana and Burera districts. With this GroW Project, Reseau des Femmes will be implementing the home grown programs and gender transformative approaches accompanied by planned project interventions in five (5) districts of Rwamagana, Burera, Gicumbi, Musanze, and Nyabihu. During the three years project work, Réseau des Femmes will be implementing the project interventions activities and IPAR Rwanda will conducting the research component on this project.
Project objectives:
i) Assessing the impacts of Réseau des Femmes’ unpaid care work project
ii) Engaging policymakers with evidence on what works in redistributing and reducing unpaid care work to deepen
their understanding of pathways for scale and effectiveness
iii) Inform and support the scaling up of successful interventions to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work across
districts and communities