The Minister of Infrastructure has urged environmentalists to look for alternate cleaner production means as a way of protecting the environment.

Eng. Linda Bihire made the remarks while addressing a gathering of environmentalists at a conference held under the theme "environmentally sound waste management and cleaner production in Rwanda”, held in Kigali on Tuesday.

She welcomed the commitment by several stakeholders to the concept of waste management and cleaner production saying that it indicates their strong support for government policies of enhancing sustainable development.

The meeting comes a few days after the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) set up a Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production Centre in Rwanda. The establishment of the centre was funded by the One UN Programme in Rwanda.

Cleaner Production centres aim to build cleaner national production capacities, fostering dialogue between industries and government and enhancing investments for transfer and development of environmentally sound technologies. 

According to the Minister, enterprises in Rwanda are yearning for information about better ways of managing waste.

As the country focuses on making production greener, markets are demanding that services and products meet environmental standards, and according to Bihire,  the only way to be competitive is minimising costs of production and being environmentally compliant.

"In a globalised economy, we may not need to re-invent the wheel; we only need to get better networks to bring the right knowledge from where they exist,” said Bihire.

Several speakers at the conference concurred to the fact that there is a general lack of effective technologies that control and reduce waste production.

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