Keywords: Rural Development
To provide cow farmers from vulnerable families in the Rusizi District/ Nkungu sector with easy access to medicine through mutual insurance at a minimum cost at an appropriate time so as to increase milk production.
In 2006, the Government of Rwanda implemented the One Cow per Family project (Girinka), the project aimed at cutting poverty and improving health and nutrition in rural areas by giving a cow which would produce milk to drink and manure to fertilize crops. Families that received the cows were however unable to properly care for the animals which resulted in large scale death of livestock.
The Cows Health Insurance Program (CHIP) sought to address this gap. The CHIP program was launch in 2017 in the Nkungu sector, since then no cow has died due to lack of medicine. Milk production has also increased from 1,284 liters a day to 2,167 a day. Because of the steady supply of milk, farmers mobilized and formed a cooperative which financed the establishment of a milk treatment center. Farmers further plan to develop an IT application system that will facilitate the management of the program which is continuously gaining popularity in the country.