Rwanda

In this sce­nario, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion would focus pri­mar­i­ly on voca­tion­al and tech­ni­cal train­ing, inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance and the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. In addi­tion, human rights and gen­der equal­i­ty will be seen as cross-cut­ting priorities.

Dur­ing the vis­it by the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter Fay­ot in June 2022 to Rwan­da, Min­is­ter Fay­ot had two meet­ings with his Rwan­dan coun­ter­parts respon­si­ble for inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion, name­ly the Min­is­ter for Finance and Eco­nom­ic Plan­ning and the Min­is­ter for For­eign Affairs. Among oth­er top­ics, the meet­ings focused on renew­ing coop­er­a­tion between our two coun­tries. In addi­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs were invit­ed to attend a pres­i­den­tial din­ner, at which they expressed their con­cerns about respect for human rights in Rwanda.

Two del­e­gat­ed coop­er­a­tion projects, with Enabel and the French Devel­op­ment Agency (AFD), were con­clud­ed in 2022. Thus, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is co-financ­ing the KHI­WAZA (“feed­ing the cities”) project, togeth­er with the Euro­pean Union. It is being imple­ment­ed by Enabel, the Bel­gian devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion agency, thus demon­strat­ing the ​“Team Europe” approach. The project aims to strength­en hor­ti­cul­ture and aqua­cul­ture val­ue chains in Rwan­da. This con­tributes to Rwanda’s tran­si­tion towards more sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, in the broad sense of the term. Rwanda’s pop­u­la­tion is large­ly depen­dent on sub­sis­tence agri­cul­ture, with about 65% of house­holds prac­tis­ing agri­cul­ture. Yet, while the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor is an impor­tant pil­lar of the Rwan­dan econ­o­my, it is also a sec­tor with very low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and low rev­enue. In order to sup­port Rwan­da in its quest for an agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor that can feed the coun­try (Rwan­da is still large­ly depen­dent on imports to ensure food secu­ri­ty in the coun­try), the project seeks to strength­en the above-men­tioned val­ue chains through capac­i­ty build­ing and through the devel­op­ment of more sus­tain­able farm­ing meth­ods, as well as improved access to finance for small-scale farm­ers. To that end, Enabel has request­ed the exper­tise of ADA, a Lux­em­bour­gish NGO. In addi­tion, the organ­i­sa­tion­al capac­i­ties of small agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tives in Rwan­da should be strength­ened to improve the mar­ket­ing of small­hold­ers. The project is also direct­ly linked to the ​“Team Europe” ini­tia­tive on the con­struc­tion of a whole­sale mar­ket in Kigali where small­hold­ers could sell their pro­duce. Luxembourg’s finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion amounts to EUR 5.5 million.

With AFD, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion is co-financ­ing the AFTER II project, imple­ment­ed by AFD and Exper­tise France. Luxembourg’s con­tri­bu­tion amounts to EUR 6 mil­lion. The AFTER II project aims to help improve teach­ing and learn­ing con­di­tions in voca­tion­al and tech­ni­cal train­ing (VTT) in order to offer young peo­ple high-qual­i­ty train­ing suit­ed to cur­rent labour mar­ket require­ments. The sites ben­e­fit­ing from the project are the Karon­gi and Muhoro­ro VTT cen­tres in Karon­gi dis­trict and the Kitabi and Cyani­ka VTT cen­tres in Nya­m­agabe dis­trict. The project will enable the four ben­e­fi­cia­ry insti­tu­tions to increase their capac­i­ty and offer bet­ter liv­ing and study con­di­tions on cam­pus through the con­struc­tion and equip­ment of class­rooms, lab­o­ra­to­ries and work­shops, dor­mi­to­ries, can­teens, infir­maries, recre­ation­al spaces, an ear­ly child­hood devel­op­ment cen­tre and sports facil­i­ties, and to help tech­nol­o­gy col­leges to become cen­tres of excel­lence. The build­ings will com­bine both ener­gy effi­cien­cy and envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance and will need to respond to cli­mate change by hav­ing a reduced car­bon foot­print dur­ing man­u­fac­ture, use and end-of-life disposal.

In addi­tion, the recruit­ment of an inter­nal expert by LuxDev in August 2022 launched the pro­duc­tion of a roadmap that is to serve as a basis for the devel­op­ment of a future project in the field of inclu­sive and inno­v­a­tive finance. The final roadmap is expect­ed in March 2023.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2022, LuxDev has been rep­re­sent­ed in Rwan­da by a res­i­dent representative.