The Rwandan government and the World Bank have signed a financing agreement for US$50 million to encourage the country to develop its agricultural sector, official sources said on Wednesday in Kigali.
An official statement received by PANA in Kigali said it was an additional amount from the global initiative of the World Bank meant to finance several programmes on food security and to back the productivity and trade of products derived from the agricultural sector.
“Rwanda is the first country in the world to benefit from that programme,” said the statement, which added that the financing would also help promote investments, including the supply in technical assistance and the development of infrastructure after the harvest period, such as the installation of the modern stockade systems.
An official statement noted that in Rwanda, 60 per cent of the population was living under the poverty line and 90 per cent of lands were essentially worked by small farms.
Agriculture is the mainstay of Rwanda’s economy, contributing some 40 per cent to the US$3.4 billion dollars of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Central African country
