Musanze, RWANDA: The Ministry of Public Service and Labour convened a strategic workshop with national stakeholders to identify barriers and opportunities for formalizing the economy, focussing on agriculture, manufacturing, creative industries and digital economy, from 1-5 September 2025. With representatives from the ministries of agriculture, local government, trade and industry, finance and economic planning, social partners and civil society organisations, the workshop has developed an action plan that will be integrated into the country’s national Global Accelerator Roadmap. The UNRCO, ILO and UN Women are supporting the development of the national Roadmap as part of the UN Joint Programme in Rwanda, with UNHCR, IOM, and UNICEF also involved in the process.
Rwanda has experienced robust GDP growth, reduced poverty and made improvements in education, health and living standards in the past decade. Current main challenges in Rwanda are high informality, youth unemployment and gender disparities, which the country aims to address through the Global Accelerator. The Roadmap and interventions have been framed within the contours of Rwanda’s Vision 2050 and the National Strategy for Transformation (NST2) and the UNSDCF (2024 – 2029). Agribusiness, manufacturing, and the creative industry and digital economy were identified as the most relevant sub-sectors for job creation in general, and youth, women and persons with disabilities were identified as the priority groups for targeting the interventions. The workshop convened multiple stakeholders to discuss and better understand informality within these sub-sectors and its subsequent impact on the identified groups, in a transparent and participative process. This workshop was a follow up to the Roadmap Development Workshop hosted with a similar group of stakeholders on 18-22 August 2025.
Over the course of the week, stakeholders explored the structural drivers of informality. They identified practical pathways for formalizing enterprises and workers, by drawing examples from successful local and international experiences. Participants agreed on social protection being both, an incentive and a viable pathway for the formalization of jobs and workers in the Rwandan context. A key outcome of the workshop is the draft “Action Plan Supporting Transition from Informal to Formal Economy” which reflects participants’ consensus, highlights priority actions, shares responsibilities and provides baseline data for monitoring formalization progress through the Global Accelerator.
This consensus will contribute to a coherent national strategy that strengthens regulatory frameworks, incentivizes compliance, extends social protection coverage and fosters a transition toward decent, productive, and sustainable employment, laying the foundation for a more equitable and resilient Rwandan economy.
Rwanda joined the Global Accelerator as a Pathfinder Country in 2024 and is working on barriers and opportunities to help formalize its jobs and economy. The draft national roadmap has identified three strategic enablers for acceleration:
- Integrated social protection and labour market policies to promote formalization and extend social protection coverage.
- Skills, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities through workplace learning, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and innovation-driven industries.
- Graduation from poverty and productive inclusion, combining transfers, financial inclusion, and livelihood support.