Kigali December 7, 2017: The Government of Rwanda and the World Bank Group today signed a US$ 68 million (approximately Frw 59 Billion) Additional Financing Grant Agreement for the on-going Feeder Roads Development Project (FRDP) sourced from the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for Rwanda Feeder Roads Development. 

The objective of the project is to enhance all season road connectivity to agricultural market centers in selected districts. The MDTF has been established with the key objective to stimulate large, multi-donor, coordinated effort necessary to undertake feeder road development in Rwanda. The current contributing donors to the MDTF are the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Kingdom of Netherlands.

The Grant will help finance the costs associated with the scale-up of the on-going Project and broaden the program from the existing four districts to ten districts of Rwanda. The Grant would also help the rehabilitation, upgrading and multi-year maintenance of an additional 450 km of feeder roads in six new districts to the on-going 270km in the existing districts. These are Gatsibo and Nyagatare in the Eastern province, Nyabihu and Rutsiro in the Western Province, Nyaruguru in the Southern Province and Gakenke in Northern Province.

“The scale-up of the program follows the Government’s strong willingness to improve connectivity in rural areas and thus enabling farmers to access input and output markets, “The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Claver Gatete said.

The FRDP is designed as an integral part of the agricultural support initiatives in Rwanda and helps farmers to transport key agricultural inputs, and move their crops and products to markets. “The Project is expected to directly benefit about 1 million people in the ten (10) districts, generate about 5,000 employment opportunities through road rehabilitation contracts and a further 3,700 under roads maintenance contracts”. Yasser El Gammal, the World Bank Country Manager said.

The Division of Labour (DoL) allows World Bank to be active in Agriculture Sector development, Energy, Social Protection as well as Rural and Urban resettlement alongside other cross-cutting and regional projects interventions.