President Paul Kagame yesterday met the board members of MasterCard Foundation, who paid him a courtesy call at Village Urugwiro in Kigali.

The 13-member delegation was in the country to witness the progress of the implementation of projects sponsored by the Foundation as well as to deliberate on possible areas of further cooperation with Rwanda.

Speaking after their meeting with the President, Jim Leech, the chairperson of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, said the 10-year old Foundation has been partnering with Rwanda for the last 8 years.

"MasterCard Foundation is about 10 years old and has been partners with Rwanda for about 8 years now in projects which include youth education, financial inclusion, and skills training,” Leech said.

Leech said they were keen on broadening their partnership with the country and to align their activities to Rwanda’s Vision 2020.

"We had an exchange of views on the things we saw in the projects and how they have been aligned with Vision 2020. We also talked to the President on the future of the country where he explained on the new vision for 2050. It is now a question of endeavouring to align our priorities with government priorities,” Leech said.

So far, the Foundation has committed about $85 million benefitting about a million Rwandans, he noted.

"By the time the current projects are finished in about three years, they will have touched about 10 per cent of the population,” Leech said.

This was the Foundation’s first board meeting held outside North America.

The Minister for Education, Dr Papias Musafiri, said the Foundation had been a key partner in the ongoing implementation of Vision 2020 in areas such as skills development, education, availing opportunities to young people as well as access to finance.

He said the two parties were now evaluating ways to further their partnership beyond Vision 2020 to long term national plans.

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