18 November 2020: Rwanda’s Infrastructure Minister Honourable, Claver Gatete participated in the second annual #Infra4Dev virtual conference, themed "Decarbonizing Infrastructure in the Digital era," jointly organised by the World Bank’s Infrastructure Vice Presidency and the University of California, Berkeley. The conference aimed at exploring the ways in which investments in and regulation of infrastructure are helping to mitigate the long-term effects of climate change, especially for those living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries.
During a Lead Policy Panel which discussed the Green New Deal for the World, Minister Gatete highlighted the critical role of infrastructure sector in Rwanda which catalyzes broader economic growth and contributes significantly towards the realisation of country’s ambitious social and economic transformation aspirations.

“Therefore, he said, access to safe, reliable and cost effective infrastructure is essential to achieve the levels of growth as stipulated in the National strategy for transformation NST1”.

Talking about the Rwanda’s approach to decarbonising infrastructure, Minister Claver emphasised on different policies that are environmental friendly which have been developed and implemented across the four pillars of infrastructure sector in Rwanda namely; energy, transport urbanisation and rural settlement as well as water supply and sanitation.

“Rwanda has embarked on Promoting the use of renewable energy which is not only environmental friendly but also less costly; the current renewable energy share is 54% in the total generation mix. The Generation is currently dominated by hydro which constitutes 44% of the Energy mix.

In the area of biomass reduction, the Government of Rwanda has put in place the National Fund for Environment (FONERWA) which has a plan to disseminate over 75,000 improved cook stoves (ICS) to low income Households as big biomass consuming Institutions are encouraged to use Liquefied petroleum gas (LPGs). 

Minister highlighted the importance of introducing electric mobility and the control of vehicle emission in different vehicle inspection centers across the country. This has impacted much on environment conservation.

The Infra4Dev conference attracted policy makers, high-level experts, researchers and academics, practitioners and entrepreneurs with an expertise in the conference theme. Through a series of discussions and panels focusing on energy, transport and digital systems, the conference surveyed the current policy debate on these topics and highlighted opportunities for new collaborative research.