Kigali Green City pilot Project
The government of Germany has injected €10million grant (Rwf10billion) to kick start the construction of affordable housing units in a sustainable green city project in the city of Kigali.
The Kigali green city project initiated last year and its implementation phase is set to begin this year.
In this grant agreement, the German government today signed 10 million euros (Rwf 10.4 billion) out of the €30million (Rwf 31.2 billion) that was committed in this project in December 2019.
The funding will be used to finance the flagship project for the construction of Green City Kigali pilot phase on 600 hectares in Kinyinya sector, Gasabo district.
In the first phase, at least 1,749 housing units on 18hectares will be constructed in the next five years at an estimated cost of $103.8million (Rwf97.7billion) out of the $1.5 billion needed in the whole first phase in Kinyinya.
The minister of finance said that in order for this phase to be completed it needs more funding and called on the private sector to follow suit by taking on the project funding opportunity.
“This will be replicated for development of green secondary cities at the national level and the houses will benefit citizens to have access to affordable housing,” said Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning.
German envoy Dr. Thomas Kurz (L) and Finance Minister Dr.Uzziel Ndagijimana exchange agreement papers in Kigali on Friday
Ndagijimana said that the feasibility study is ready and will be complete by June 2021 to pave way for the completion of the whole project but asked that the private sector comes on board.
Germany envoy, Dr. Thomas Kurz said the project will be implemented by its agencies like KFW bank and also committed an additional €20m, which will make the whole funding towards the project amount to €30m.
The Germany funding will contribute into putting in place enabling infrastructure and environment for implementation of the pilot phase- such as electricity water and roads, but will also be used as catalyst for private sector to join the project.
“We will support this project in all the phases to ensure sustainable growth in affordable housing and transport even though it is very expensive and hard to implement. We will strive to make this happen,” Dr. Kurz said.
For the Ministry of Infrastructure (Mininfra), the Kinyinya project will add to the already existing public-private partnerships (PPP) which has 15,000 housing units lined up this year, against the 32,000 units needed every year.
This partnership adds to the fast growing efforts to provide affordable housing for citizens. It will enable families that are shifting from wetlands to afford decent housing especially that they will be relatively cheap-not more than Rwf25mllion,” said Edward Kyazze, the Head of Urbanization and Human Settlements Division at Mininfra.
The pilot green city project is implemented in partnership with the city of Kigali, Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), Rwanda Green Fund (Fonerwa) among others.
Rwanda and German have enjoyed a bilateral relationship since 1963 that has focused on skills capacity building, private sector, education and other development sectors.
