26 January 2021: Minister of Infrastructure Hon. Claver Gatete participated in a Virtual Commonwealth High Commissioners Briefing themed “A call to action on sustainable urbanisation across the commonwealth”

This special briefing event aimed at discussing urban matters across the Commonwealth in response to climate change and rapid urbanisation.

In his remarks, Minister Gatete reaffirmed Rwanda’s strong dedication and commitment towards promoting and enabling sustainable urbanisation.

“Rwanda strongly believes that by pursuing the sustainable urbanization agenda, we will be in a good position to transform our economy from an agriculture-based to a more industrialized and service-based economy”, he said.

Recognising the opportunities presented by sustainable urbanisation, Minister Gatete noted that Rwanda has established several initiatives to develop different cities with a green growth approach. “This helps to benefit from the social, economic and environmental dividends that accrue from balanced urban growth, through good planning and the provision of infrastructure”, he emphasised.

Minister Gatete reiterated Rwanda’s ambitious target of achieving 35% urbanisation rate by 2024 and 70% by 2050 from 18.4% in 2017 in line with the National Strategy for Transformation. He noted that the focus of urbanisation as one of Rwanda’s future drivers of growth in the recently adopted Vision 2050 further justifies the role of urbanisation in Rwanda’s long-term development agenda.

“Beyond Rwanda and across the commonwealth, it cannot be over emphasized that sustainable urbanisation is and will continue to be the main engine and enabler for the delivery of the SDGs and achieving our climate change targets”.

In this perspective and in preparation for CHOGM to be hosted by Rwanda in Kigali in June 2021, Minister Gatete reaffirmed Ministry of Infrastructure’s support towards the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Summit that will be held on the side-lines of CHOGM.

“We believe that this event will provide a glorious opportunity to respond to the Call to Action with practical initiatives that can deliver a more effective inter-disciplinary and cross sector response”, he concluded.

The Commonwealth High Commissioners Briefing is part of series of events organised by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), the Commonwealth Association of Architects, the Commonwealth Association of Planners, and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, with support from The Prince’s Foundation, the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, the Rwandan Ministry of Local Government, and the Commonwealth Engineers Council together with a range of partners to discuss sustainable urbanisation in the Commonwealth.