EDPRS taking socio-economic services to grassroots

The overall objective of infrastructure sector is to improve living conditions of Rwandan population through economic infrastructure and sustainable development across the country. This sector is subdivided into five sub sectors for each to be fully reflected on. The infrastructure sector comprises the following sub sectors: energy, transport, ICT, urbanisation, housing and finally the weather sub sector. It is on this subdivision that working sub group formation was based. The EDPRS policy document highlights the main self-evaluation results are as follows: Road network Efforts in improving national road system resulted in significant progress over the last years, a number of national roads being rehabilitated. However, it is somehow difficult to express in figures information available at national level in terms of general status of road network, access to transport services and transport costs. Newly constructed and rehabilitated road maintenance-related issues require more important resources and will be in principle met through the increase of Road Maintenance Fund’s revenues. Rural transport links continue to be among districts’ high priorities and are of paramount importance to increase access to markets and more generally to support a national export promotion strategy. However, rural road-related responsibilities having been decentralised, information at district level need to be collected. At regional level, efforts to open up the country were undertaken to improve competitiveness of Rwandan enterprises in Comesa region. These include commissioning of feasibility studies for Isaka - Kigali railway line and the construction of Bugesera International Airport, studies on the rehabilitation of trunk roads of the Central Corridor (Kayonza-Rusumo , Butare -Cyangugu et Kigali -Ruhengeri -Gisenyi,), and North Corridor (Kigali- Gatuna), execution of rehabilitation works of Kigali - Kayonza and Gitarama- Butare –Akanyaru trunk roads and finally those of Kampala – Kigali pipeline. Industrial processing Electricity shortages faced in 2004 were the highest, pointing to thirty years of poor investment in energy sector. The implementation of an emergency electricity action plan led to the ease of shortages through thermal power, though high electricity costs are a heavy burden for consumers and enterprises. However, more progress was made towards methane gas exploitation from Lake Kivu; which should result in high increase in total quantity of electricity produced at lower costs. Soft technology Promotion of competition in telecommunication sector which was the PRSP original priority action, was timely carried out while adopting the law relating to the liberalisation of the sector. Achievements linked to the adoption of this law are the following: • Rwandatel Privatisation ; • Licensing of mobile phone services to Terracom after MTN• Licensing of internet services to MTN after Terracom, Artel et Mediapost. However, such measures being taken with a slight delay (2005), impact on decrease in communication costs is still unclear. Substantial progress was made over the last year in ICT area. While the ICT sub sector is in its early stages and represents a relatively small part of national production, there is evidence of a rapid growth. The support of Government for ICT development resulted in connecting government buildings in Kigali to fibre optics. The network is under expansion towards other towns. Today, there are no reliable data on ICT impact on poverty reduction especially in rural areas. Urban development and housing sub sector Urban development and housing sub sector contributes to socio-economic development of the country (services, jobs, industries etc.) and especially to poverty reduction; but it was not ranked among priorities during the elaboration of PRSP1. The focus was on less costly accommodation development and promotion of infrastructure in Imidugudu. This policy shows no tangible results in housing and urbanisation for allocated funds remained insufficient. The housing sub sector influences peoples’ incomes since 30 per cent of funds allocated to construction benefit the workforce. Sustainable development Given geophysical features of our country, weather sub sector is the pillar of sustainable development. Poverty reduction policy, however, did not give tangible results since on one hand, the sub sector was ignored during the elaboration of this policy and technical staff and equipment for weather data collection and analysis remained inadequate on the other. However, some actions such as weather equipment acquisition were carried out for 8 synoptic stations and weather data availed upon request by national and international institutions, NGO’s, universities, researchers and other individuals. Ends