Rwanda hit growth targets in roads, education and electricity access, says African Development Bank

The African Development Bank Group has commended Rwanda for making significant progress in the growth of its road network, education needs and energy access which has proved to have last mile impact on its citizens over the last five years.

Rwanda is a beneficiary of the African Development Fund – the Bank Group’s concessional funding window – secured in November 2021, and is focused on two priority areas.

The first priority area is strengthening physical infrastructure to increase productive resources and reduce the cost of doing business, and the second is developing skills and financial capacity to boost the private sector and drive growth based on productivity.

In the first priority area, 66% of the transport sector indicators have been achieved and have contributed to reducing travel time from over three hours to less than one, improving access to markets and commercial opportunities, and reducing the cost of doing business.

Around 50% of the targets have been met in the energy sector, including national access to electricity, which rose from 40.5% in 2017 to nearly 75% in December 2023.

An additional 375,543 households and 2,306 connections for schools, healthcare facilities, small businesses, and national offices have benefited from grid and off-grid power connections, improving livelihoods.
Similarly, around 50% of the water sector results indicators have been achieved by connecting 1.5 million more people to drinking water, improving their quality of life as a result.

All of the results indicators in the second priority area have been achieved. A total of 120 targeted specialist graduates were employed within a year of graduating and 100 sustainable digital businesses have been created by young people, helping increase revenues in the beneficiary population.

Rwanda is implementing the African Development Bank country strategy 2022-26, after a previous tenure of 2017 to 2021. The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group last week approved the mid-term review of the Country Strategy Paper (CSP) 2022-26 for Rwanda in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

“The progress during the first half of the implementation period has been significant,” a statement from the Bank said.

“There are still challenges and the remaining phase will continue to tackle them following the same objective of helping Rwanda to encourage the development of productive capacity to boost growth based on productivity, free up the potential of the private sector and ultimately, accelerate the country’s structural transformation,” Aïssa Touré-Sarr, African Development Bank Country Manager in Rwanda, said.