The University of Rwanda is set to host the headquarters of the East African Community Regional Center of Excellence for vaccines, Immunization and Health supply chain management (EAC RCE- VIHSCM).

The centre, whose construction works are expected to commence not later than June 2020, will be built at University of Rwanda, Remera Campus.

This regional center of excellence (RCE) was operationalized by the first EAC regional steering committee for the EAC regional centers of excellence for higher medical education, health services and research that convened last year in February.

Established in 2015, this RCE’s mandate is to address challenges related to vaccines and other health commodities supply chain management through the strengthening of the human resource capacity function.

However, "prior to the construction, a competition for the architectural design of the facility was launched where four companies qualified out of six that had applied and were invited to tender for architectural design competition,” said Jean d’Amour Habagusenga, one of the facilitators of the competition and operation coordinator at Regional Centre of Excellence of Health Supply Chain.

One of the four companies that had prequalified dropped out leaving three which were: GITEC-IGIP GmbH-MASS Design LLC, Consortium SWECO-LANDMARK, and Consortium HYDROPLAN- TECOS.

The grand prize is 10,000 Euros as well as 6,000 and 3,000 Euros for the runner up.

This competition was held at the School of Architecture and Built Environment (SABE) where the judges visited different stands of the bidding companies and evaluated the participants basing on various parameters.

"These parameters that were considered are: building standards, functionality, accessibility and sustainability as well as social impact. The winner is to be announced soon,” Joe Diogene Maniraguha, one of the jury experts from Rwanda Housing Authority said during the presentation.

The RCE’s funds have come from the Federal Republic of Germany through the German Development Bank-KfW which amounts to 10 million Euros of which 4 million Euros will be used for the construction of the facility.

The facility will include a library, seminars and conference room, research space and a cafeteria.