Accra, 24 May 2022---Prime Minister Dr. Edouard Ngirente represented H.E President Paul Kagame at the opening ceremony of the African Development Bank Group 57th Annual Meetings, taking place in Accra, Ghana from 23 to 27 May 2022.

He took part in a Presidential Panel Dialogue on “Africa’s Development Challenges and Opportunities” alongside the host H.E Nana Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, H. E Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of the Republic of Mozambique, H.E Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of the United Republic of Tanzania as well as Tiémoko Meyliet Koné,Vice-President of Côte d'Ivoire.

In his intervention, the Premier shared with participants Rwanda’s efforts in the economic recovery process. He noted that in the first nine months of Covid-19, given the importance that Rwanda attaches to human capital development and in order to support the education sector, Rwanda built over 22,000 classrooms.

Prime Minister stated that Rwanda’s recovery process was mainly driven by the Economic Recovery Fund, established to support the recovery of businesses hardest hit by COVID-19 and the Manufacture and Build to Recover Program aimed at incentivizing new investments in specific sub-sectors.

He emphasized the importance of attracting youth in agriculture as a profitable sector. In this regard, he said that Rwanda is putting in place a project which will lower the interest to a single digit rate in order to facilitate those willing to invest in this sector.

Prime Minister also highlighted Rwanda’s efforts in seed production, showing that Rwanda achieved its target of locally producing all agriculture seeds by the end of 2021. He added that Rwanda put in place a fertilizer plant that is expected to be operational in one year period.

He finally revealed that in terms of post-harvest handling, Africa loses close to 40% of its produce due to weak post-harvest management. To address this issue, Rwanda is investing heavily in post-harvest management to make sure that the whole value chain is well managed.

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