The World Bank recently signed a financing agreement with Rwanda, which will see the global bank boosting the country's energy rollout programme with $60 million (approx Rwf38bn).
The money is an additional financing loan agreement under the International Development Association (IDA) and will go to the Electricity Access Roll-out Programme (EARP).
The 30-year loan agreement was signed between the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Amb. Claver Gatete and Carolyn Turk, the World Bank country manager.
"The agreement will avail the $60 million to bridge the financing required to maintain EARP's momentum as the Government of Rwanda continues to mobilise additional resources to scale up household connections," said Gatete.
Government plans to have connected at least 70 per cent of the country's households to the national power grid.
About $45 million of the World Bank grant is allocated for improving the general national grid roll-out while $5m will go to green connections, which involves supporting a range of activities to scale up affordability for consumers, and promote energy efficiency and productive use, according to a statement from the ministry.
The remaining $10m is dedicated to enhancing technical assistance during the implementation of the programme.
"We appreciate the brave steps the Rwandan government has continued to take in providing reliable and affordable energy to its people and this is what has encouraged us to continue partnering with it," Turk pointed out.
The programme will be implemented by Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA) and will build on the EARP phase 1 and provide connections to an additional 48,000 households over the next three and half years.
The original programme supported by several partners, particularly the World Bank, saw USD 357 million mobilised for the phase 1 programme.
EARP is a multi-donor programme that has mobilised a total of US$348.2 million for the initiative since 2009.
By Ivan Ngoboka, The New Times
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