The Belgian government is set to release EUR 38.12 million (about RWF 30,000, 000, 000) to Rwanda, as part of the two countries’ development cooperation frame-work, it was revealed yesterday.

Foreign Affairs minister Rosemary Museminali and Belgian Chargé d’Affaires, Theofiel Baert, signed five new cooperation agreements at the ministry’s premises.

"These are funds that had been earmarked but the action that we have just done today of signing for the funds helps get the money into the projects so that they can start being operational,” Museminali told reporters shortly after putting pen to paper.

"And we believe that this is all going to feed into our programme of development,” she said, stressing how crucial the Belgian support was, as well as expressing government’s appreciation for it. 

Queried, Baert spoke well of the current Rwanda-Belgium development cooperation framework.

"Our relationship in cooperation is very good. For the moment, we are implementing our programme quicker than at the beginning and we have met mid-term commitments. We are ahead of schedule,” he noted.

"This is a very good partnership and we hope we can go on in the same way.”

A subsequent press release indicates that this "project fund” money will go into five specific areas, including; animal husbandry, infrastructure development and an institutional support programme for the implementation of a strategic sanitary development plan for Kigali city. It will also assist in accessing safe drinking water in Nyaruguru, Huye and Gisagara districts of southern province.

In addition to these other projects, some Euro 4m will be set aside to support socio-economic and cultural development of the Northern Province with the view of consolidating its social fabric and the reconciliation process.

"The Belgium government is one of the European countries that showed up very expeditiously to emergency needs in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide against Tutsis and development processes to date,” the release adds.

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