● Excellencies
● Friends of the environment
It is a pleasure to join you today for this Leadership Dialogue and I wish to thank the
Government of Sweden and the United Nations for providing a platform for nations and
their citizens to share insights, wisdom and ideas for a greener future.
There is no doubt that we need to move faster, not just because this is the Decade of
Action, but because science, our environment and our future all demand it.
I am pleased to share perspectives from Rwanda for this Leadership Dialogue, and we
are glad to learn from others today.
Like many climate exposed countries, Rwanda is working hard to both mitigate our
limited emissions and increase our resilience and adaptive capacity. We still know,
however, that we are not doing enough.
Following the Stockholm+50 consultations in Rwanda, the following key actions were
brought forward as solutions to accelerate sustainable development.
● First, we need to fast-track, scale-up and disburse far greater levels of climate
finance. Rwanda has a fully costed NDC climate action plan of 11 billion dollars, but
nowhere near the multilateral support nor private investment required to achieve
it.

2
● We need to stop destroying the natural assets we still have left, and invest in
restoring degraded ecosystems. This is our best chance to reduce the impact of
the climate crisis on vulnerable communities and slow biodiversity loss.
● We also need to protect our soil as if our lives depend on it, because ultimately
they do. Soil conscious conservation agriculture and landscape restoration will
increase productivity and provide energy, water and food security for a growing
global population.
● We need to bring private sector players to the table and access the trillions of
dollars of capital and assets they manage. In Rwanda, our national green
investment fund is working with the Development Bank of Rwanda and the Kigali
International Finance Centre to make sustainable investing more attractive and
less risky. But we need support from global financing institutions to bring these
novel initiatives to life. The same is true to realise the potential of carbon markets.
● Finally, we need to have a greater diversity of voices – both at the table and on
the ground. We cannot expect communities to own solutions if they’re not part of
developing them. A clear message from our Stockholm+50 consultations was to
mainstream the needs of vulnerable groups into policies and practices. They told
us: “Nothing for us without us.”
Just as you have listened to me today, we need to listen more carefully to communities
around the world. They are on the front-lines of the fight against climate change and
already have the most to lose.
I would like to once again thank the Government of Sweden and the United Nations for
bringing their voices to these discussions, and I hope they will inspire us to act.

Thank you for your kind attention.