Rwanda

The three areas of intervention identified as priorities for renewed cooperation are technical and vocational training (TVET), the environment and sustainable development and inclusive and innovative finance. Digitalisation, good governance and gender equality were identified as cross-cutting themes. The financial envelope for Rwanda is between EUR 10 and 12 million per year.

With a view to facilitating the resumption of bilateral cooperation, two delegated cooperation projects began in 2023, with the Belgian development agency (Enabel) and the French development agency (AFD). Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation is thus contributing to the KWIHAZA project (“Feeding the cities”), a project to develop agricultural value chains co-financed by Luxembourg and the European Union (EU) and implemented by Enabel, as well as the “Technical training and employability support project in Rwanda”, a project to support vocational training centres in Rwanda, implemented by AFD. Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation also increased its initial contribution to the KWIHAZA project by EUR 2 million in 2023, making it possible to expand the “access to finance” component of the project, which will be implemented by the Luxembourgish NGO ADA. At the end of 2023, it also decided to make a contribution of EUR 3 million to a joint fund initiated by the German and French development cooperation agencies (KfW and AFD), entitled “Basket Funding for Pro-Poor Development”. The fund’s primary objective is to foster inclusive and sustainable growth by improving the quality of local (social) services in both rural and disadvantaged
areas of the country. This will include the construction of infrastructure of benefit to vulnerable populations, such as water and sanitation, health, climate resilience and agricultural production.

In addition, in 2023 Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation finalised the formulation of KIFC, its first flagship project in Rwanda. As part of the project formulation, a delegation from Luxembourg composed of leading Luxembourg figures in the inclusive finance ecosystem who will contribute to the project visited Rwanda in September 2023, to finalise the project’s technical and financial documentation with their Rwandan counterparts.

Finally, LuxDev was mandated in 2023 to formulate two other projects in the fields of vocational and technical training (the Digital Skills project) and sustainable development (the EPAFLEC project). Implementation of these projects is expected to start in early 2024.