Steffen Kuhl, the IFE Managing Director signs with Manasseh Gihana Wandera, Executive Director, SFH Rwanda.
More than 1,000 jobs are set to be created by the German government in within the health and nutrition sectors under a newly signed partnership aimed at stimulating growth and development in the aforementioned sectors.
The jobs, which are as a result of a grant by the Facility Investing for Employment (IFE), on behalf of KfW Development Bank and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), were made public through the signing of two grant agreements to support two social impact projects in Rwanda.
The signing took place in Kigali, last week, at the residence of the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Rwanda.
One of the grants is a EUR 1.1 million to Solid’Africa, a local social enterprise, for the establishment of an Institute for Culinary Arts and Nutrition (ICAN).
The grant will serve to fund the construction of a vocational training centre for chefs and other professional kitchen staff to meet the nutritional needs of low-income patients in hospitals as well as serve in the country’s private sector, including the hospitality one.
The funds will go towards creating more jobs.
Solid’ Africa produces around 9,000 free meals a day for hospital patients in its canteen kitchens and sells over 4,000 meals to various private customers such as catering companies, proceeds of which are reinvested into the organisation’s activities.
The second grant, worth 1.53 million EUR, was given to the Society for Family Health (SFH) with a focus on the creation of new jobs within the health sector through the construction of health posts as well as improving the capacity of health workers to deliver high-quality healthcare services in remote areas.
“Solid’ Africa is a good example of a social enterprise because they have been able to combine business with social bottom-line results and that impressed us a lot. They will create over 850 jobs, which is important for us. Steffen Kuhl, the IFE Managing Director said.
He also added that both projects align well with IFE’s special initiative that is dubbed Jobs for a Just Transition.
“SFH has been working with us for some time now; this is a second grant for them; the first was for construction of 80 health posts and now they will be building 20 more. We are happy to work with them to build these health posts all over Rwanda to ensure medical services are brought closer to the population,” Kuhl said of SFH.
The funding will enable Solid’Africa to nourish more patients in health facilities.
The grants also put in focus the importance of partnerships in job creation and the scaling of businesses.
“This is an important partnership and it is coming at a time when we are scaling up our feeding programme at the national level where we recently signed a partnership with government to expand our feeding programme to at least 47 district hospitals countrywide,” Nassir Katuramu, Solid’ Africa CEO said.
Both grantees will contribute towards the full realisation of the projects, where the funding provided by IFE towards the establishment of the Institute for Culinary Arts and Nutrition is equivalent to 72 per cent. The remaining 28 per cent will be covered by Solid’ Africa.
The grant extended towards SFH is equivalent to 75 percent of the total cost of the project and the remaining part will be contributed by the grantee.
The Facility Investing for Employment (IFE) is an investment mechanism created by KfW Development Bank on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) as an integral part of the Special Initiative “Decent Jobs for a Just Transition”.
Officials visit one of the health posts.
Operating under the brand “Invest for Jobs”, the Facility aims to remove investment barriers that prevent the creation of new and better jobs in the private sector in its partner countries in Africa: Ghana, Rwanda, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.
Society for Family Health (SFH), one of the beneficiaries, was established in 2012 SFH is a national health organisation dedicated to improving the health of people in Rwanda by focusing on serious challenges like a lack of family planning, HIV and AIDS, barriers to maternal health, and the greatest threats to children under five, including malaria and malnutrition.
Solid’Africa on the other hand was started in 2011 with the purpose of providing food, hygiene and medical support to low-income patients at Rwandan public hospitals. To ensure sustainability of their mission, in 2021 they created a Community Benefit Company (Solid’Africa CBC) as its profit-seeking private arm which provides catering services to private companies. 100% of the profit generated from these activities is re-channeled into feeding vulnerable patients.
