It is the official return of the French Development Agency to Rwanda in line with the warming of Franco-Rwandan relations. On Thursday March 3, Rémi Rioux, AFD’s Managing Director, inaugurated the agency’s new office in Kigali, in the presence of the Rwandan Minister in charge of Economic Planning, thus confirming AFD’s recommitment to the country of Thousand Hills.
With our correspondent in Kigali, Laure Broulard
A new agency, with ten representatives, a partnership agreement with the Rwandan Development Bank and a new start for AFD in Rwanda. She had left the country in 1994 during the genocide of the Tutsis. She then did not return because of the tense relations between Kigali and Paris, but under the mandate of Emmanuel Macron, she accompanied the rapprochement between the two countries behind the scenes.
This is indeed the fourth visit to Rwanda since 2019 by its general manager, Rémy Rioux. ” I came in June 2019 to meet President Paul Kagame, and he asked me to resume fundingconfirms Rémy Rioux. So since 2019, step by step, we are building a new relationship “.
A focus on education
Over the past three years, AFD has committed financing and loans to the tune of 218 million euros in Rwanda. It plans 200 million more by 2023. It is therefore almost 500 million in 5 years, as President Emmanuel Macron had promised during his visit to Kigali last year. With an emphasis on education. ” There are two components: vocational training and the teaching of French, continues the Director General of AFD. To put French back into the school curriculum and resume, in the interest of regional integration, this teaching which had declined significantly since 2008 “.
In the health sector, discussions are underway regarding funding for the hospital in Musanze, in the west of the country.