Rwanda and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Wednesday signed an agreement for additional financing for water supply and sanitation programme.

The funding, worth $20 million, is an addition to the $17-million loan that the OPEC Fund gave to Rwanda in March last year.

Under the programme being financed, Rwanda aims to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in Kigali and the six satellite cities and contain waterborne diseases as well as related healthcare costs.

It is envisaged to improve living standards for nearly 1.6 million people, in line with the country’s development and poverty reduction strategy, which seeks to scale-up investments in reliable, affordable and environmentally sustainable infrastructure.

The OFID has in the past approved more than $182 million in public sector lending to Rwanda across a wide range of sectors including energy, transport and agriculture.

Private sector funding of $25 million was also extended to the Bank of Kigali to expand lending to small and medium-sized businesses.

Rwanda has also benefited from OFID’s regional and national grants for emergency assistance, agricultural research, HIV/AIDS programmes and polio eradication.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com