Efforts to have more than 2500km of feeder roads upgraded by 2017 have received a timely shot from the US government, which has given $50 million (about Rwf35 billion) toward the cause.

The US envoy to Kigali, yesterday, signed a financial agreement with the World Bank to channel the grant through the bank’s feeder roads development project.

The project will help improve road infrastructure by rehabilitating and maintaining up to 350km of rural roads in several districts.

They include Nyabihu, Nyagatare, Gatsibo, Nyanza and Kayonza districts.

The initiative, according Geraldine Mukeshimana, the Minister for Agriculture, will connect farmers to markets and help attract more investors into the sector.

"It will help fast-track the implementation of government’s plans to have more than 2500km of feeder roads upgraded as is prescribed in the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS2) blue- print,” Mukeshimana said during the signing ceremony at the ministry’s headquarters in Kigali.

The project also aims at reducing rural poverty by improving the roads that connect to agriculture market centres, thus increasing household incomes for farmers, she added.

The United States ambassador to Rwanda, Erica Barks-Ruggles, said the project is part of a multi-donor fund.

It will also help link service providers to poor communities thus playing a fundamental role in poverty reduction, Barks-Ruggles said.

"The five-year-project will allow easier and faster transportation of goods and increased market activity, our partnership is based on shared vision of a more prosperous future for all Rwandans,” she told The New Times.

As part of the project, the Ministry of Agriculture will receive technical assistance from the World Bank on financial management, monitoring, engineering and evaluation, Rwanda’s World Bank Manager, Carolyn Turk explained.

The World Bank group has already committed more than $45 million toward the project.Others on board include the European Union and the Netherlands.

According to George Munyaneza, senior engineer at Roads Transport Development Agency (RTDA), more than 510km of feeder roads have so far been upgraded.

"We are targeting to have another 462km upgraded by the end of this year, making a total of about 1000km since the project started two years ago,” Munyaneza told this paper.

Agriculture remains the main driver of economic growth, contributing 34 per cent of the country’s total GDP during the third quarter of 2014.

The sector employs more than 70 per cent of the population and is expected to play a vital role in creating more 200, 000 jobs annually through 2018.

The sector, which grew by 5 per cent and contributed 1.6 per cent to the national economy, accounted for 33 per cent of economic growth.

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