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The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a grant amounting to UA1mn equivalent to US$1.4mn to finance the environmental management support project (PAIGER) in Rwanda

The project objective is to contribute to sustainable management of natural resources and better protection of the environment. More specifically, the project aims to build Rwanda ‘s institutional capacity for environmental management.

Accordingly, the project will diagnose the environmental situation, put in place an environmental information system and train staff of the structures responsible for the environment, the Directorate of Environmental Protection, in particular.

The project will target these goals by building the institutional capacity of the Directorate of Environmental Protection, training its professional staff in the process and providing equipment and technical assistance. The project will also create a database system equipped with an environmental information and statistics system (SISE).

To operationalise these goals, the project will focus on the main following components: capacity building; creation of a database; and project management.

The project will contribute to raising the living standards of the population by bringing the deforestation rate down to 15% and increasing the reforestation rate to 20% as of year 5. This is significant in the sense that with the massive return of Rwandans from neighbouring countries, forest resources were destroyed for farming and grazing, and for utility and firewood.

The project beneficiaries are rural and are in particular, professional organisations, women’s associations as well as individual producers who will benefit from a more effective supervision from state departments and NGOs through training and sensitisation workshops. In addition, the government departments in charge of environmental management, especially the Directorate of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land, Resettlement and Environmental Protection will also benefit from project activities. A better management of Rwanda’s environment will no doubt be relevant to women especially in agricultural production, small-scale farming, fetching of fire wood, hygiene and sanitation, crafts, and sensitisation of the population through associations and women’s NGOs.

The estimated total cost of the project is UA1.09mn equivalent to US$1.53mn. The ADF grant, which covers the entire foreign exchange cost, will finance 91.7% of the entire cost of the project. On its part, the government will contribute 8.3% of the project’s total cost.
Bank group operations in Rwanda started in 1974. To-date the group has committed an amount of UA 329.83mn equivalent to US$462.05mn for 51 operations at a rate of disbursement of 68% (as at April 30th, 2003 ).